Date Published:
2019
Abstract:
This study uses participant observation to examine how an all-female collective in Los Angeles uses urban cycling culture as a way to contest inequalities and advocate for social change in communities of color. Bridging the literatures on gentrification and social movements, I examine how the collective uses the bicycle as a unifying tool to draw disparate individuals together and, through the group’s practices and rituals, generates a shared sense of collective identity and politicized consciousness embedded within the uneven spatial development of Los Angeles. I demonstrate how this politicized consciousness drives a collective spirit of resistance that challenges gentrification by re-imagining and re-embodying space through organized actions and everyday practices. I find that organized anti-gentrification resistance is not merely reactionary, but rather entails pre-figurative action and visioning for space and community. Overall, findings speak more broadly to how communities of color facing exclusion and marginalization make claims to space and community.
Publisher's Version