An ethnography of global connections : the case of Critical Mass
Submitted to the Department of Anthropology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts (Anthropology) School of Social Science Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2016 === The primary purpose of this study is to identify the social characteristi...
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| Format: | Others |
| Language: | en |
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2017
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| Online Access: | Lopes, Katia Batista, (2016) An ethnography of global connections : the case of Critical Mass, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <http://hdl.handle.net/10539/22807> http://hdl.handle.net/10539/22807 |
| Summary: | Submitted to the Department of Anthropology in
partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
Master of Arts (Anthropology)
School of Social Science
Faculty of Humanities,
University of the Witwatersrand, 2016 === The primary purpose of this study is to identify the social characteristics of the Critical Mass
event in Johannesburg, an event that forms part of an international movement. The
international Critical Mass movement is made up of 350 participating cities around the world
where cyclists ride as unregulated groups, on the last Friday of every month, to take back the
streets from cars. My study investigates who rides in the Critical Mass event in
Johannesburg, how they move through the inner city streets as a group and reasons given by
the organisers and the participants for why the ride occurs. This study was conducted as a
patchwork ethnography, where I participated in and observed the ride, but also collected
secondary data (archives, maps, media sources, public reports and conferences/meetings)
implicated at the ride. Using Anna Tsing’s (2005) conceptual frameworks ‘friction’ and
‘global connection’ I suggest that my findings point to the particularities, a number of
contextual factors that reach beyond the ride itself, but are always already contingent on
moments of friction during the ride. I explain that the moments of frictions make clear the
multiple chains implicated during the ride, that is the everyday. I argue that these chains are
dynamic connections to identity, spatial and discursive privilege during the ride. This account
of the particularities of the Johannesburg event, as cycling in Africa, the global South, fill the
gap in the research on Critical Mass that is focused on Western accounts of the ride.
Furthermore, as an experimental approach in anthropology my use of the patchwork method
and connections contribute to new and political ways of thinking about the global South.
Lastly, my study provides a lens to look at cycling advocacy. === GR2017 |
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