‘Cycling is good’ but ‘cyclists are reckless’
Discourses of Mobility Justice and Discrimination
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jld.24428Keywords:
climate crisis, identity, fossil-fuel lifestyles, climate inaction, auto mentalityAbstract
Urban mobility choices and policies are not a common object of study for linguistics. These policies and choices actually generate forms of discrimination by creating reified identities of ‘drivers’ against ‘cyclists’ against ‘pedestrians’. Through the prism of ‘mobility justice’ this paper shows how detrimental discursive choices contribute to the normalisation of a mobility system which is highly discriminatory and a source of toxicity and danger to humanity. The discriminations imposed by the hegemonic system of automobility reinforce other forms of intersectional discrimination. By looking at journalistic texts that employ road-user identities to fuel narratives of conflict, this study highlights the need for linguists to contribute to language-focused investigations already being carried out from the perspectives of other disciplines such as Geography, Sociology or Transport Studies. It also shows how these investigations can provide answers to broader questions concerning climate inaction.
References
Al-Balbissi, A. H. (2003) Role of gender in road accidents. Traffic Injury Prevention 4(1): 64–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/15389580309857
Aldred, R. (2013) Incompetent or too competent? Negotiating everyday cycling identities in a motor dominated society. Mobilities 8(2), 252–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2012.696342
Atrey, S. (2019) Intersectional Discrimination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baker, P. C. (2019) Collision course: Why are cars killing more and more pedestrians? The Guardian. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/03/collision-course-pedestrian-deaths-rising-driverless-cars
Benwell, B. and Stokoe, E. (2006) Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Bercht, A. L. (2020) Tackling climate inaction. How a social identity approach matters to climate communication. Wissenschaftsmanagement 2020. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from www.wissenschaftsmanagement.de/open-access/open-access
Bogost, I. (2022) The E-bike is a monstrosity. The Atlantic. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/08/ebike-electric-bikes-climate-change-exercise/671305/
Caimotto, M. C. (2020) Discourses of Cycling, Road Users and Sustainability. An Ecolinguistic Investigation. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Churchill, D. (2022) Cyclists could face 20mph limits and may need number plates: Shake-up of road laws could see bike-riders forced to have registration numbers, insurance and get fined for speeding. The Daily Mail. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11117805/Shake-road-laws-bike-riders-forced-registration-numbers-insurance.html
Cox, P. and Van De Walle, F. (2007) Bicycles don’t evolve: Velomobiles and the modelling of transport technologies. In D. Horton, P. Rosen and P. Cox (eds.) Cycling and Society 113–32. London: Routledge.
Daggett, C. (2018) Petro-masculinity: Fossil fuels and authoritarian desire, Millennium 47(1): 25–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829818775817
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
FEVR. (2018) We live vision zero. Retrieved 25 January 2023 from http://www.welivevisionzero.com/
Fevyer, D. and Aldred, R. (2022) Rogue drivers, typical cyclists, and tragic pedestrians: A critical discourse analysis of media reporting of fatal road traffic collisions. Mobilities. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2021.1981117
Friends of the Earth. (2022) People of colour far likelier to live in very high air pollution areas. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://friendsoftheearth.uk/sustainable-living/people-colour-far-likelier-live-very-high-air-pollution-areas
Guterres, A. (2022) Secretary-General’s opening remarks at press conference on the 77th session of UN General Assembly. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2022-09-20/secretary-generals-address-the-general-assembly
Jackson, T. (2017) Prosperity Without Growth. Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow. London and New York: Routledge.
Kite, M. (2022) We have to put the brakes on reckless riders. Commentary. The Daily Mail. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11117805/Shake-road-laws-bike-riders-forced-registration-numbers-insurance.html
Laker, L. (2021) British Road Collision Reporting Guidelines. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.rc-rg.com/guidelines
Lakoff, G. (2010) Why it matters how we frame the environment. Environmental Communication 4(1): 70–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524030903529749
Laville, S. (2020) Ella Kissi-Debrah: How a mother’s fight for justice may help prevent other air pollution deaths. The Guardian. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/16/ella-kissi-debrah-mother-fight-justice-air-pollution-death
Magusin, H. (2017) If you want to get away with murder, use your car: A discursive content analysis of pedestrian traffic fatalities in news headlines. Earth Common Journal 7(1): 65–97. https://doi.org/10.31542/j.ecj.1229
Norton, P. D. (2007) Street rivals: Jaywalking and the invention of the motor age street. Technology and Culture 48(2): 331–59. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2007.0085
OED Online. (2022) Oxford University Press. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from www.oed.com.
Oosterhuis, H. (2019) Entrenched habit or fringe mode: Comparing national bicycle Policies, cultures and histories. In T. Myllyntaus and T. Männistö-Funk (eds.) Invisible Bicycle: Parallel Histories and Different Timelines, pp. 48–97. Leiden: Brill.
PACTS. (2020) What kills most on the roads? New analysis for the new transport agenda. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.pacts.org.uk/pacts-report-what-kills-most-on-the-roads-2/
Pidd, H. (2022) Spat at, abused and run off the road: Why do some people hate cyclists so much? The Guardian Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/aug/30/why-do-some-people-hate-cyclists-so-much
Ralph, K., Iacobucci, E., Thigpen, C. G. and Goddard, T. (2019) Editorial patterns in bicyclist and pedestrian crash reporting. Transportation Research Record, 2673(2): 663–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361198119825637
Ravensbergen, L., Buliung, R. and El-Geneidy, A. (2023) Cycling safety as mobility justice. In G. Norcliffe (ed.) The Cycling Companion, pp. 272–281. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Sheller, M. (2018) Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes. London and New York: Verso.
Smith, M. (2017) How left or right-wing are the UK’s newspapers? The Times. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-left-or-right-wing-are-britain-s-newspapers-8vmlr27tm?region=global
Spagnolo, C. (2016) Lecce, piomba con l’auto sui ciclisti e fugge: Uno è morto, un altro è grave. Forse una lite, un fermato. Repubblica. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://bari.repubblica.it/cronaca/2016/01/22/news/auto_pirata131829166/
Sparks, M. (2011) Driver ploughs into critical mass ride in Brazil. The Guardian. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/mar/01/diver-brazilian-critical-mass-ride
Stibbe, A. (2021) Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Terkourafi, M. (2021) Inference and implicature. In M. Haugh and D. Z. Kádár (eds.) Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics 30-47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thomashow, M. (1996) Ecological Identities: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
van Dijk, T. A. (1992) Discourse and the Denial of Racism. Discourse and Society 3(1): 87–118. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926592003001005
Verkade, T. and te Brömmelstroet, M. (2022) Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform Our Lives. Translated by Fiona Graham. Melbourne and London: Scribe Publications.
Walks, A. (ed.) (2015) The Urban Political Economy and Ecology of Automobility: Driving Cities, Driving Inequality, Driving Politics. London and New York: Routledge.
Whitelegg, J. (2020) Safety, risk and road traffic danger: towards a transformational approach to the dominant ideology. In P. Cox, and T. Koglin (eds.) The Politics of Cycling Infrastructure. Spaces and (In)Equalities. Bristol and Chicago: Policy Press.
Wild, K., Woodward, A., Field, A. and Macmillan A. (2018) Beyond ‘bikelash’: Engaging with community opposition to cycle lanes, Mobilities 13(4), 505-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2017.1408950
World Health Organization. (2018) Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018. Geneva. Licence: CC BYNC-SA 3.0 IGO. Retrieved on 25 January 2023 from https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1164010/retrieve
