| 1. |
- Balkmar, Dag, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Contested mobilities : politics, strategies and visions in Swedish bicycle activism
- 2017
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Ingår i: Applied mobilities. - : Taylor & Francis. - 2380-0127 .- 2380-0135. ; 2:2, s. 151-165
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cycling is currently the focus of considerable political and public attention in many urban areas. As more and more cyclists claim space on the roads, new forms of political engagement in cycling issues beyond traditional bicycle advocacy have also emerged. Beyond focusing on cyclists’ perspectives and rights, these expressions of bicycle activism show the ways in which bicycles – as potential vehicles for sociopolitical change – are contested political and cultural symbols. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the ways in which bicycle activists and advocates in Sweden construct their politics and practices. Empirically the paper addresses three expressions of contemporary bicycling activism and advocacy: the well-established Swedish national cycling advocacy organization Cykelfrämjandet (Cycling Sweden), the ad-hoc Ghost Bike Sweden, and the online-based Bike Maffia-initiative. The empirical material of the paper consists of qualitative interviews with the leading representatives from each organization or initiative, as well as written and video materials. As arenas for cultural politics, the organizations or initiatives are diverse, exemplifying highly different views concerning conflicts in urban space, strategies for addressing these conflicts, and views of cyclists as subjects of bicycle politics. The paper addresses these issues in a specific Swedish context, also exploring the implications for understanding how political activism is shaped more generally. It is argued that bicycle activism can be viewed as a way of practising cycling citizenship, a perspective that provides a conceptual linkage between new social movement theory and activism more generally.
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| 2. |
- Andersson, Susanne, et al.
(författare)
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Moving with(in) normative firewalls : a dynamic approach to study gendered careers and innovation processes in the truck industry
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we explore how existing work place culture and gendered norms impact on the possibilities to work with so called ”norm-critical” innovation processes in an organisation. Norm-critical reflexivity in the context of innovation processes implies to pay attention to invisible and implicit norms that may result in that certain privileged perspectives is being prevailed (over others) (Balkmar & Lykke 2015). The empirical findings emanates from a two year interactive research project, in which gender researchers in collaboration with participants at Volvo Group, Sweden, have explored the ways that the company can increase its capacity to work with norm-critical perspectives in the innovation process. Volvo is a highly gender segregated organisation. At the same time the trucking industry in itself is highly masculinized in terms of different professions; ranging from truck drivers to sales personnel to technical engineers involved in the design and manufacturing of trucks. In later years the shortage of truck drivers, in combination with more women drivers entering trucking academies and haulage contractors, has led to a questioning of male norms in the transport business. This includes reports of difficult working conditions for female truckers, including how the design of the truck itself takes the male body as the implicit norm, to the assumption that it is a man that is the presumed driver of trucks.This paper focus on the part of the project that seeks to better understand how existing work-place culture and norms structure who is considered the ideal employee (Acker 1992) and its implications for innovation. This includes studying its impacts on both the possibility for different categories of employees to take part in the innovation work on equal terms, and the ability to reflect upon the impact of implicit norms in the innovation process itself. In total, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with co-workers and managers (13 women and 5 men). The main questions concerned whether there existed ideals that formed implicit ”codes” (Bendl and Schmidt 2010) in the organization and its impact on ideas of preferred professional qualifications, behaviors, personal qualities and its links to career possibilities and innovation. The underlying theoretical assumption is that gender is a fundamental element of organisational structure and work life; “present in [its] processes, practices, images and ideologies, and distribution of power” (Acker 1992, p. 567). The way that gender plays out in the daily life in a workplace is understood as not being a static barrier prohibiting women in general, rather, it is considered fluid, relational and may vary depending on the context (Meyerson & Fletcher 2001, Bendl and Schmidt 2010). It is argued that the concept ”fire wall” (Bendl and Schmidt 2010 ), offers a fruitful way to highlight the elasticity and permeability that we believe characterize the forms of discrimination, inclusion and exclusion that takes place in these processes.ReferencesAcker, J. 1992. Gendering Organisational Theory. In Mills, A. and Tancered, P. (eds.). Gendering Organisational Analysis. London: SAGE.Acker, J. 2006. Inequality Regimes: Gender, Class, and Race in Organisations. Gender and Society 20(4):441-464.Balkmar, D. & Lykke, N. 2015. Developing disruptive norm-critical innovation at Volvo: FINAL REPORT. Linköping: Tema Genus Report Series No. 23: 2015.Bendl, R. & Schmidt. 2012. From 'Glass Ceilings' to 'Firewalls' - Different Metaphors for Describing Discrimination. Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 17. No 5:612-635.Meyerson, D. & Fletcher J.K. 2001. A Modest Manifesto for Shattering the Glass Ceiling. Boston: Harvard Business Review.
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| 3. |
- Balkmar, Dag, 1974-
(författare)
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A Violent Regime : Men, Masculinities and Road Conflicts in Sweden
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This presentation focuses on violence(s) in traffic space as a gendered problem. It draws on qualitative online studies and interviews with cyclists about their experiences of motorists’ violent practices, including cyclists’ negotiations of anti-cyclist discourses and their coping strategies. It follows that modal conflicts is not only a problem for cities with a low prevalence of cycling; ‘bike friendly’ cities like Copenhagen and Stockholm are also troubled by fights between cyclists and drivers (Freudendal-Pedersen 2015; Koglin 2013). Such conflicts are gendered in complex ways.Automobility appears to be a ‘violent regime’ (Joelsson 2013), a regime that produces uncaring, oppressive and violent configurations of men and masculinity (cf. Hanlon 2009). However, there are no clear-cut gendered frameworks to be applied. Such violence cannot be understood within a binary gendered framework; there is neither clearly a typical victim position nor a gendered perpetrator position. It is argued that automobility makes it possible for certain men to perform their ‘right to the road’, including gender-identity-shaping practices, and that this has the negative effect of violating cyclists’ bodily integrity. It follows that a shift from cars to more sustainable mobilities also demands related shifts in masculinities and men’s practices in the context of transport and traffic.
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| 4. |
- Balkmar, Dag, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Bicycling and politics : movements, strategies and visions in bicycle activism in Sweden
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Swedish national government, as transport authorities and many Swedish municipalities, are currently planning and implementing ambitious programs that are designed to promote cycling and increase the share of cycling among everyday travel modes. However, with more ‘pro-cycling’ discourses and in the wake of antagonism and lack of road space for increasing numbers of cyclists, new forms of bicycle activism appears to be on the rise.The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the ways in which bicycle activists in Sweden construct their politics and the role of bicycle activism as a vehicle for contributing to more sustainable cycling futures. What are their concrete approaches and strategies that inform their activism? How do activists and advocates view bicyclists as e.g. vulnerable, angry or marginalized subjects, and how do they view their roles as spokespersons for these groups? What alternative visions for cycling and cyclists are expressed? Empirically the paper focuses on three expressions of contemporary bicycling activism/advocacy; the Swedish national cycling advocacy organization, the ad-hoc “Ghost Bike Sweden” and the on-line based “Bike Maffia”-initiative in Stockholm.It is argued that all three reflect a “contested terrain” with regard to approaches and strategies to bicycle activism (Vivanco 2013, 103). Although all three share an ambition to improve conditions for cyclists, they reflect core differences in their strategies and views on bicycling as contested practice: from more pragmatic, policy- and solution-oriented approaches to explicitly political and hands-on street-level activism. All three organisations/initiatives also represents different forms of grassroots organisations with different capacities to participate within formal governance structures. However, the more activist based initiatives seem to create spaces for new forms of political engagement beyond formal institutions – initiatives that also are worth listening to.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Balkmar, Dag, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Cyborgs and entanglements of technology, masculinity, and (automated) vehicles
- 2019
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Ingår i: Feministische Studien. - Berlin : Walter de Gruyter. - 0723-5186 .- 2365-9920. ; 37:2, s. 320-334
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, we will discuss different entanglements of technology and masculinity with a special focus on (automated) vehicles. Starting from a cyborg- epistemology formulated as 'thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, prosthesis' (Gray 2001: 189), we will, in three sections, entangle and disentangle different discourses and practices around how masculinity has been constructed around intimacy, technology, and cyborgisation. Historically, this points in both destructive directions and emancipatory hopes of transcendence through cyborgisation. Cyborgs are thus political technologies, and we argue that a history of masculinity as well as the future of masculinity, in a western context and beyond, can be understood in relation to cyborgisation and intimacy with technological artefacts. It is argued that cyborgs are possibly the tricksters of the future posthuman masculinity but they are also a tool to understand the 'leitmotif' of male transcendence in the history of masculinity. To illustrate our point, we will use different forms of technologies of movement and other man-machine relations as our "objects-to-think-with", considering gendered power relations and emancipatory potentials (Haraway 2004: 321).In the first section we will discuss cyborgs and masculine entanglements in a historical perspective to suggest a cyborg-epistemology. Such approach is apt for understanding masculine desires of transcendence invested in and nurtured through automatons, golems, robots, etcetera. A characteristic feature of these ‘Man plus’ (Gray 2001) artefacts and creatures have been their prosthetic capacity with an inherent destructive/emancipatory Janus face. In the second section, we will apply the cyborg-epistemology to contemporary imaginaries and driving practices of cars. Cars and car driving is one of the arenas where masculinity is clearly constructed around intimacy, technology and cyborgisation, as exemplified in numerous cases of popular culture, and daily practices in and around cars. This section exemplifies emancipatory and destructive aspects of cars and car driving in dominant automobility systems. In the third section we will be more future oriented and speculative, looking at autonomous transport futures. While the interpellative experience of cars and its emotional and gendered dimensions have been discussed in the second section, the third section turns to the question how autonomous vehicles can be imagined and ‘felt’, and perhaps also changing gendered relations with, in and around cars (Berscheid 2016).
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| 7. |
- Balkmar, Dag, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Cykelpolitik : rörelser, strategier och visioner i svensk cykelpolitik
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Politiker, kommuner och transportmyndigheter arbetar idag på olika sätt för att förbättra förutsättningarna för cykling – inte minst för att skapa mer attraktiva, sunda och tillgängliga städer. Men med en alltmer cykelvänlig diskurs – och i kölvattnet av motsättningar i trafiken relaterat till trängsel för ett ökat antal cyklister i storstäderna – skapas också grogrund för nya former av cykelaktivism. Ofta tar dessa initiativ utgångspunkt i vem och vilka trafikslag som får ta plats på och ha tillgång till stadens gator samt vilka former av motstånd som kan riktas mot bilismen som norm.Syftet med det här föredraget är att beskriva och analysera de sätt som cykelaktivism i Sverige konstrueras samt cykelaktivismens roll som förändringsaktörer i arbetet för hållbara städer. Vilka konkreta tillvägagångssätt och strategier baseras aktivismen på? Hur förstår aktivister och cykelförespråkare cyklister, exempelvis som sårbara, arga eller marginaliserade grupper. Hur ser de på sina roller som talespersoner för cyklister? Vilka alternativa visioner för cykling och cyklister uttrycker de?Empiriskt fokuserar presentationen på tre nutida uttryck för cykelaktivism/cykelförespråkare; Cykelfrämjandet, Ghost Bike Sweden och det online-baserade initiativet Cykelmaffian i Stockholm. Metodologiskt baseras presentationen på kvalitativa metoder, främst intervjuer med representanter för respektive organisation/initiativ, samt analyser av deras externa kommunikation. Resultaten från studien visar att cykelaktivism är att betrakta som ett omstritt område, särskilt med avseende på initiativens strategier och inriktning. Även om alla tre delar en ambition om att förbättra förutsättningarna för cykel, så ger de uttryck för centrala skillnader i deras respektive strategier och syn på cykling och cykelpolitik: från en mer pragmatisk, policy- och lösningsorienterad inriktning till explicit politiska och direkt-aktions orienterade former av gatuaktivism. Alla tre organisationer/initiativ representerar också olika former av (gräsrots)organisationer, med sinsemellan olika möjligheter att medverka och påverka inom ramen för formella politiska strukturer. Samtidigt så skapar de mer aktivistbaserade initiativen nya former av utrymmen för politiskt engagemang och motstånd bortom formella institutioner.
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| 8. |
- Balkmar, Dag, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Developing disruptive norm-critical innovation at Volvo : FINAL REPORT
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Volvo Group Trucks Technology and Tema Genus, Linköping University, have initiated a collaborative project to foster disruptive norm-critical innovation at Volvo. The aim is to 1) further develop existing methods for initiating innovation by bringing disruptive norm-critical innovation methods into already existing “tool boxes for innovation” at Volvo, 2) develop a particular tool box to enhance disruptive norm-critical innovation across existing “tool boxes”, and 3) develop a disruptive norm-critical innovation tool box targeting the leadership programme at Volvo Trucks to enable better management and integration of norm-critical innovation processes at Volvo. The first step was a pilot project, outlined below, the overall aim of which was to develop a detailed application (VINNOVA) which can achieve the above aims.
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| 9. |
- Balkmar, Dag, 1974-
(författare)
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Manliga maktdemonstrationer i trafiken
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ikaros. - Åbo : Folkets bildningsförbund. - 1796-1998. ; :3, s. 12-13
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)
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| 10. |
- Balkmar, Dag, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Masculinity and Autonomous Vehicles : A Degendered or Resegregated Future System of Automobility?
- 2018
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Ingår i: Transfers. - New York : Berghahn Books. - 2045-4813 .- 2045-4821. ; 8:1, s. 44-63
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article addresses the anthropomorphization and interpellative experience of cars and trucks, in order to meet future mobility challenges. Autonomous vehicles offer an emancipatory opportunity within a wider movement of degendering and regendering motor vehicles. We argue that autonomous vehicles can challenge the foundations of a gendered economy founded on masculinity, speed, pleasure, and embodiment. Rather than thinking in terms of a process of demasculinization, this article anticipates a regendering and resegregation through which certain forms of masculine gendered economies of pleasure will lose ground and others will gain. A core question in this article asks who will be in the driver’s seat of future systems of automobility as the control of the vehicle is gradually being transferred from the driver to digital control systems and intelligent roads.
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