It is not uncommon to meet researchers who are also activists in their own field, due to their desire to encourage social change and their desire to meaningfully engage with socio-political environments to solve a problem (Sharkey et al., 2019). While research on the positionality of the researcher-activist has been amply developed, literature on how advocacy and research can inspire each other to deliver positive change has not been explored. How can the gap between research and advocacy be bridged? How can these two fields work together to strengthen the human infrastructure of cycling? Why and how should academic language be translated into everyday discourse to foster social awareness and bolster political will for transforming our cities?

This workshop aims to answer these questions through this process:

1. Exploring Perspectives: In the initial phase, the workshop will examine ways to strengthen the human infrastructure of cycling in Tehran and Milano from two distinct perspectives: activists and academics. This will involve open-ended interviews with participants from both fields.
2. Conceptual Framework Development: In the second phase, the workshop aims to develop an initial conceptual framework for the researcher-activist role, identifying key themes and areas of overlap between research and advocacy.
3. Collaborative Focus Group: The final phase will involve presenting and discussing this preliminary framework with researchers and activists at the conference, through a collaborative focus group session. This session could be conducted in collaboration between the UCI team and BYCS. It will include collaborative and reflection activities to broaden the participants’ perspectives and provide useful tools to engage with both researchers and activists in their home context.

Source:

Sharkey, M., Lopez Franco, M., Mottee, L. K., & Scaffidi, F. (2019). Activist Researchers: Four Cases of Affecting Change. plaNext–Next Generation Planning, 8, 10-20. https://doi.org/10.24306/plnxt/42

Linguistic challenges and societal narratives should be considered in shaping barriers and resistance to change. Language not only reflects reality but actively shapes it, influencing our perceptions, actions, and shared futures. As Te Brömmelstroet et al. (2020) emphasize, “Language is not a neutral mirror of reality, but has a profound impact on what we see, what we do not see and how we act and shape our future together.” Common statements such as "We are not Amsterdam," "Our city is too hilly for cycling," or "Cycling in polluted air is harmful" are pervasive in car-centric cities and perpetuate resistance to developing cycling. These linguistic constructs influence how communities perceive cities, streets, and mobility systems, dictating their use, planning, and governance.
This workshop will explore and challenge these entrenched narratives by leveraging lived experiences and research findings. In the first phase, the session will uncover and critically examine linguistic barriers to urban cycling development, with a specific focus on Tehran. These statements will be analyzed as key obstacles to change.
The second phase will involve an interactive workshop where participants will collaboratively construct alternative, transformative statements. The aim is to create counter-narratives that dismantle barriers to change and instead drive a discourse of transformative change. For instance, rather than accepting the statement, "Tehran's slopes are unsuitable for cycling," participants may co-create alternatives such as, "Because of the steep terrain in Tehran, we should prioritize gear and electric shared bicycles in those areas."
The ultimate goal is to empower participants to reframe existing narratives and foster a collective understanding of the power of language in shaping and changing urban mobility to facilitate transformative change. The outcomes of this workshop, including collaboratively developed counter-narratives, could culminate in a manifesto by the UCI. This manifesto would serve as a guide for promoting alternative narratives in diverse contexts, inspiring cities to embrace cycling-friendly futures.

Te Brömmelstroet, M. (2020) Mobility Language Matters. De Correspondent, Amsterdam.

On the one hand, mobile subjects have captured the attention of various disciplines, including social sciences, humanities, and anthropology. The "mobilities turn" in these fields, along with the "humanities turn" and "ethnographic sensitivity" in mobility studies, emphasize the importance of a more nuanced understanding of mobile practices. On the other hand, our current engineering-based urban mobility system is deeply shaped by concepts such as utility, efficiency, speed, and cost-effectiveness. This focus has led to numerous crises for human life both locally and globally (Te Brömmelstroet et al., 2022).
Our pressing question is how critical interdisciplinary thinking from the humanities, social sciences, and anthropology can lead to a narrative turn in urban mobility through understanding, challenging, and transforming the status quo into a human-centered future. We argue that challenging the underlying worldviews and narratives is necessary for mobility transition, and the humanities, social sciences, and anthropology are well-equipped to lead this effort.

This proposal aims to practice collective conceptual leniency to foster genuine interdisciplinary dialogue and identify new narratives for radical change and meaningful mobility transition. By prioritizing human experiences and values, we can use the lenses of social sciences, humanities, and anthropology to understand, challenge, and change the dominant mobility paradigm, placing "human" rather than "machine" at its center.

• Pre-Workshop: The first phase involves online and in-person interviews with mobility researchers from social sciences, humanities, and anthropological perspectives. These discussions will address the potential and challenges of interdisciplinary contributions to rethinking urban mobility. This process aims to introduce an initial interdisciplinary conceptual framework.

• Workshop: The second phase consists of a focus group to modify, develop, and specify this framework, with a particular focus on placing the bicycle at its center. Participants with diverse cycling research backgrounds will engage in interactive collaboration to raise new questions about the role of the bicycle in this framework as a lens for understanding human experiences, a tool for challenging the dominant paradigm, and a catalyst for transformative and positive change.