*I recently published my first article on the conflict system of vehicular violence – check it out here!*
I utilize qualitative and quantitative methods and apply theories from various disciplines to ask: how can we reimagine our streets for collective care?
📑 Critical Discourse Analysis
What is the ideology that drives our current transportation paradigm? I’m applying critical discourse analysis to government hearing testimonies to determine how everyday people and urban planning processes perpetuate an unjust modal hierarchy. I find that a vocal minority wields power in hyper-local level public discourse driven by an ideology of car supremacy and enacts it through associated rhetorical devices that marginalize other road users to the detriment of us all.
🔬 Surveys
What do we know about who adheres to the ideology of car supremacy? Through a representative survey of US adults, I’m testing a latent ideology scale based on my theorizing about the ideology of car supremacy to determine which demographic characteristics most align with corresponding beliefs about our mobility status quo. Ultimately, the findings allow a deeper understanding of how car supremacy shapes public opinion and policy outcomes.
🎙️ Interviews
How are community cycling initiatives like bike buses challenging prevailing narratives of the purpose of our streets to center a care of mobility? I’m interviewing bike bus participants to learn how their efforts reflect an ethics of care rooted in notions of interdependence and commons – and how their experiences of building a movement are the first fractal of what a more caring transportation system could look like.
🚲 Mobile Participant Observation
How are community biking initiatives like bike buses demonstrating a unique form of collective action? I’m conducting ride-alongs with bike buses in cities across the US to determine how this form of tactical urbanism departs from earlier “critical mass” rides and instead models John Paul Lederach’s critical yeast…and what the inherent social and spatial embeddedness of this civic movement could mean for the future of our cities.
(Sevilla, Spain)
Peace and Planning 