Abstract
This project is a cultural study of bicycles and the politics that inform the everyday practice of cycling. Through a close examination of media, rhetoric, and protest, I focus my attention on groups of people who believe that bicycles are not merely forms of transportation, rather, they are instruments of communication, sources of identity, vehicles for pleasure, and tools for technological, cultural, and political critique. This 'counterculture' is comprised of feminists, socialists, punks, anti-globalization activists, writers, environmentalists, and others who have created and developed a politics of cycling through a dialectic of communication and action. Through this dialectical process, these cyclists have not only created an important body of knowledge that speaks to issues of gender, class, culture, technology, and ideology, they also demonstrate both how these issues are interrelated and how people can actively negotiate and contest their meanings. As such, they reveal the capacity for others to effectively utilize grassroots organization, alternative media production, and non-violent direct action as a means to initiate political mobilization and positive change in an era of corporatization, globalization, and widespread cynicism. More than anything, they remind us that revolution can, and must, begin in our everyday lives.
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