Body pedagogics, transactionalism and vélo identities: Becoming a cyclist in motorised societies

Sociological research into the body pedagogics of occupational, educational, religious, and sporting groups focuses on cases in which the social and material environment reproduces these ‘ways of life’, yet devotes little attention to how cultures are maintained within circumstances hostile to their maintenance. Developing a transactionalist approach to body pedagogics, I explore this gap by investigating the case of cycling within societies dominated by automobility. Cycling, in these contexts, requires individuals to engage creatively with challenging physical and environmental exchanges. Such exchanges frequently alienate but can involve the development of ‘outsider’ mobile status, have been reorganised into stable practices by vélo cultures, and highlight embodied processes relevant to general sociological investigations into marginalised cultures.