To Örebro University

Contemporary transport policy interventions in Swedish cities have lately come to contest the car hegemony in favor for more sustainable ways of moving about. Cycling is often argued to be one of the answers to the problem of unsustainable automobility. However, when cyclists take up more space in traffic than before, conflicts appear. In Sweden, the media reporting’s goes as far as to speak about ‘cycling hate’ in some cities, to describe the antagonism between cyclists and car drivers and between cyclists and pedestrians. This project investigates what these everyday conflicts look like, the impact of gender and what gendered implications come to mean in the much needed change towards more sustainable mobility.

Research on gender has much to benefit from engaging more in issues concerning sustainability and mobility. Both car travelling and the ideas of freedom and movement associated with the car are persistently linked to a masculine domain and masculine identity. Hence, a shift from cars to more sustainable mobility also encompasses related shifts in masculinities and men’s practices. Theoretically, the project links masculinity theory with the sociology of sensory mobilities, including theories on gendered risk-taking and gendered mobility more generally.

The study analyzes cyclists and motorist’s narratives and embodied experiences of issues related to shared traffic space. The informants are (foremost) men of different age groups and family situations who commute by bike and car, or work as professional drivers. The material is generated by using ethnographic methods in two Swedish cities, Stockholm and Linköping. The questions asked relate to issues around entitlement to space, disciplinary practices, embodiment, cooperation and conflicts in traffic. In conclusion, the project presents an analysis of intersectional power orders with respect to gender, age, place and mobility, thus focusing on what happens when protected and unprotected road users are assumed to share and negotiate public space.