The First Annual Conference at the Hub for Bike Studies
Conference Co-Organizers:
Andrew Bricker (Ghent University, Belgium) and Martin Zeilinger (Abertay University, Scotland)
Tuesday, 3 June to Thursday, 5 June 2025
Ghent, Belgium
The newly founded Hub for Bike Studies (a joint initiative of Ghent University and Abertay University) invites presenters to contribute to our inaugural annual conference. Join our community to take an active part in shaping an inclusive future of bike studies across and beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Conference Theme: Visions for Critical Bike Studies and its Future
Bikes and their users are deeply ingrained in the social, cultural, socio-political, and economic fabric of communities around the globe. We use bicycles for everything – from ferrying kids to school and transporting commuters to work to delivering essential goods and navigating country roads for tourism and exercise. Their use also spans broad demographics, from the youngest toddlers on balance bikes to retirees on vacation, and includes people from every walk of life, from those facing economic precarity on single-speed bikes to affluent weekend warriors astride high-end carbon frames. Cycling’s multifaceted nature renders the bike a symbol of and vehicle for innovation, transportation, sustainability, recreation, progress, tradition, luxury, inclusivity, accessibility, and activism. It is not merely a means of getting around, but a multimodal way of being that frames how individuals relate to the world. Ideally, cycling and its communities are inclusive, international, intersectional, sustainable, and diverse.
The work of many researchers from various disciplines already reflects such ideas and ideals. The challenge remains, however, in how best to translate this intuitive and lived knowledge of cycling into a comprehensive and open-ended field of study – what we are calling “Critical Bike Studies” (CBS). By CBS we do not have in mind any single, all-encompassing methodology or specific set of outlooks, but instead the cultivation of an intellectual openness that foregrounds working, researching, thinking, and – above all – communicating beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. The best work in CBS might be interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary; it might draw on discipline-specific methods or expertise or might borrow freely from the tools of other disciplines. What might become possible when cycling begins to function as the connection between diverse research interests, concerns, questions, and ambitions?
Join us in exploring, envisioning, and beginning to stake out what this work can look like and what critical purposes it can serve. What kind of Critical Bike Studies does the world need, not only today but also into the future?
We invite abstracts for posters and presentations that offer visions for the future of a Critical Bike Studies; that share existing or on-going discipline-specific research projects or case studies; and that explore opportunities for new kinds of interdisciplinary research collaborations. When developing your contribution, consider a few questions: What is a bike, what is cycling, and how do they shape both cyclists and their social, cultural, political, philosophical, and economic environs? How can we realise a Critical Bike Studies that is inclusive, interdisciplinary, international, intersectional, sustainable, and diverse?
Please note that we also welcome other topics for posters and presentations tied to bikes and cycling that do not touch directly on the conference theme outlined above. Rule number one of Critical Bike Studies: it’s inclusive!
Presentation formats:
- 20-Minute Presentations: Research papers will be grouped in panels of three, with generous time for discussion. In the spirit of forming an inclusive community, there will be no concurrent panels.
- Posters: Posters can present on-going research, share preliminary research questions, elicit feedback from peers in the bike studies community, etc.
Proceedings: Presenters will be invited to submit revised versions of their presentations for publication in double-blind peer-reviewed proceedings (publication format to be determined).
Program: The conference program will run the course of three days, and will include both academic and extracurricular activities, including keynote presentations, roundtable conversations, non-concurrent paper/poster presentations, discussion panels, sightseeing activities, and group rides. (Please note that conference attendees are expected to attend all three days of the conference.)
Day 1:
- Paper/poster presentations
- Keynote
- Conference dinner
Day 2:
- Discussion panels
- Roundtable
- Optional sightseeing activity / group ride
- Conference dinner
Day 3:
- Paper/poster presentations
- Keynote
- Town-hall discussion on the future of bike studies
- Closing Event
Abstracts due: Friday, 29 November 2024 (decisions about accepted presentations and posters will be announced in early 2025). Please submit a 500-word/3,000-character abstract for your presentation (or poster) and a short bio (ca. 250 words/1500 characters) here: https://forms.gle/THBt7kWoC9r6p1jY7
If you have any further questions or suggestions, please be in contact with the co-organizers of the conference, Andrew Bricker (andrew.bricker@ugent.be) and Martin Zielinger (m.zeilinger@abertay.ac.uk).