Speaker
Description
The multiple and intersectional benefits of cycling are well-documented, yet in spatially and socially inequitable regions like South Yorkshire, UK, increasing uptake is about more than overall magnitude. A pursuit of equitable and inclusive cycling requires the recognition of the variability of human experience, which points to a research programme that foregrounds the nuanced, contextual nature of mobility practices. Attention must also be paid to the role of identity in shaping or interacting with the physical, social, and cultural environments in which barriers to cycling are perceived.
Video methods in cycling allow researchers to be right there with participants, exploring the meanings arising within the context of movement (Brown & Spinney, 2009). The combination of elicited video recording with talking interviews generates a powerful “empathetic encounter” between participant and researcher (Pink et al., 2017) and facilitates rich reflection on mobile practice (Simpson, 2014).
This paper, drawn from ongoing PhD research into active travel equity and inclusion in South Yorkshire, reports on findings from a study of video elicitation interviews with 12 people who cycle in the region. Each participant was equipped with a GoPro to record one regular journey, and the video watched and discussed together in an unstructured interview. Based across the variable geographies of South Yorkshire, participants’ backgrounds vary in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, (dis)ability, and socioeconomics. While providing an account of a range of barriers to cycling across the region, findings explore how participants’ identities shape their mobility and their experiences of cycling through public space.
References
Brown, K. and Spinney, J. (2009) ‘Catching a glimpse: The value of video in evoking, understanding and representing the practice of cycling’, in Mobile Methodologies.
Pink, S. et al. (2017) ‘Empathetic technologies: digital materiality and video ethnography’, Visual Studies, 32(4), pp. 371–381.
Simpson, P. (2014) 'Video' in Adey, P.; Bissell, D.; Hannam, K.; Merriman, P.; Sheller, M. Handbook of Mobilities, Routledge.
Biography
Mia Rafalowicz-Campbell is a doctoral researcher in walking and cycling equity and inclusion at Sheffield Hallam’s Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research. Her research is funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council via the White Rose DTP. Her project is focused on South Yorkshire and employs qualitative go-along video/photo methods to explore a range of mobility experiences, particularly marginalised experiences, and different barriers to walking and cycling.
She also works as a mixed-methods researcher on other projects, and is currently researching everyday cycling histories in Sheffield, and policy lessons from e-cargo cycle schemes in the UK.
