The plurinational cycling revolution in Santiago de Chile: demands for mobility justice

ABSTRACT

The Plurinational Cycling Revolution in Santiago de Chile is a social movement that brings together cyclists in large numbers. Using the prism of mobility justice, we identify and analyse four ranges of demands of the Plurinational Cycling Revolution. It first calls for recognition of cycling as a mode of transport in its own right. It is also a vehicle for political, environmental and feminist demands and participates in the protest that has resonated across Chile since October 2019. We show that these demands relate to several crises of mobility. They highlight inequalities in the ability to move in the city according to social class, gender, sexual orientation, national origin or mode of transport. They critique the structures – the political system, neoliberalism, the patriarchy or the automobile system – that perpetuate these inequalities and crises of mobility. The bicycle appears to be a resilient mode of transport in the context of the crises experienced by Chile and its capital. By focusing a multiplicity of demands, it is used as a vector for systemic change in Chilean society.

KEYWORDS:

• Bicycle
• social movement
• mobility justice
• Santiago de Chile

Acknowlegment

The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their comments and Prof Yvone Riaño (University of Neuchâtel) for her inputs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The bicycle once again is a linchpin of progressive politics, but “somewhat ironically, for precisely contrary reasons to its original appeal to earlier feminists and socialists, who had, through their use of the bicycle, critiqued excessive social, political, economic and geographical immobility;” (Horton 2006a, 11).

2. Several other cycling movements across the globe have demands that go beyond cycling. This is the case of Monde à Bicyclette in Montreal (nuclear energy, feminism, the developing world, gay rights, etc.), the Yellow Bike Project (YBP) in the United States (which promotes cycling as an instrument of social change to ensure the mobility of marginalized people), and more recently, the Street Riders NYC collective (formed in June 2020 following the assassination of George Floyd, promoting cycling as a means of fighting for greater social justice) (R 2020).

3. Families in the outskirts of the city spend almost 30% of their salary on transport, while the richest spend just 2%.

4. A meeting of ideas (formerly on economic, political issues, etc.) revived during the social crisis.

5. This abundant online material echoes the participatory framework of “Xerocracy”, or “rule through photocopying”, that characterized the first Critical Mass. “Xerocrats” print flyers, stickers, posters, missives and zines to raise awareness about the campaign, give timings for collective bike rides, attract participants, etc. (F 2007).

6. This movement was born out of a conflict with the mayor of the municipality of Las Condes, who did not keep his promise to build bicycle parking at the Escuela Militar station.

7. This is not the first example in Chilean history. A member of the Salvador Allende’s government claimed that “El socialismo puede llegar solo en bicicleta” (Illich 1974: 11): “Socialism can only arrive by bicycle”.

8. Piñera has been President of Chile since 2018.

9. As part of Bici-forestación, 4000 cyclists replanted 2000 trees in a part of the region that had been devastated by fires and deforestation. This event took place before the start of the RCP, but several of the same actors were involved.

10. The day was established to commemorate the murder of 10 waste pickers in Colombia in 1992.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation [CRSK-1_190831].