IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cityxx/v21y2017i3-4p329-347.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

#boulietacks

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Chambers
  • Thomas Andrews

Abstract

Since early 2014 small carpet tacks have been persistently dropped on an undulating stretch of road in Melbourne, Australia—ostensibly targeting road cyclists. No one knows where they come from. And yet the recurring presence of these rough-hewn iron nails continue to cause serious injury, property damage and nuisance to those who use this space, all the while flummoxing law enforcement and road maintenance authorities. Our aim in this paper is to follow the interfaces between tack and tyre, finger and phone, image and social media platform, to produce a detailed account of how these mediations are materialised and mobilised politically. Here, we use mobile interfaces to think through the complexity of embodied and deeply material uses of urban space as we narrate the ways in which groups become politically organised through various media. In this dispatch, we trace the development and deployment of a hashtag—#boulietacks—as a means of following this particular Antipodean enigma through the social media and digital communications platforms. Spread on roads and between living people in the city, tacks shape different kinds of political action in response to the anonymous and asymmetrical introduction of hazards into an urban environment customarily adopted for use in road cycling—the lifeless tacks mobilise a lively politics between urban modes of existence.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Chambers & Thomas Andrews, 2017. "#boulietacks," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3-4), pages 329-347, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cityxx:v:21:y:2017:i:3-4:p:329-347
    DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2017.1325211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13604813.2017.1325211
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13604813.2017.1325211?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mimi Sheller & John Urry, 2000. "The City and the Car," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 737-757, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Busscher, Tim & Tillema, Taede & Arts, Jos, 2015. "In search of sustainable road infrastructure planning: How can we build on historical policy shifts?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 42-51.
    2. Martens, Karel & Golub, Aaron & Robinson, Glenn, 2012. "A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 684-695.
    3. Matthew Williams & Non Arkaraprasertkul, 2017. "Mobility in a global city: Making sense of Shanghai’s growing automobile-dominated transport culture," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(10), pages 2232-2248, August.
    4. Cameron White, 2016. "The conditions of practical action: Neoliberalism and sustainability in the Australian road construction industry," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1501-1515, December.
    5. Vigar, Geoff & Shaw, Andrew & Swann, Richard, 2011. "Selling sustainable mobility: The reporting of the Manchester Transport Innovation Fund bid in UK media," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 468-479, March.
    6. Nikitas, Alexandros & Cotet, Corneliu & Vitel, Alexandra-Elena & Nikitas, Nikolaos & Prato, Carlo, 2024. "Transport stakeholders’ perceptions of Mobility-as-a-Service: A Q-study of cultural shift proponents, policy advocates and technology supporters," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    7. Junxi Qian, 2015. "No right to the street: Motorcycle taxis, discourse production and the regulation of unruly mobility," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(15), pages 2922-2947, November.
    8. Miwa Matsuo, 2020. "Carpooling and drivers without household vehicles: gender disparity in automobility among Hispanics and non-Hispanics in the U.S," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 1631-1663, August.
    9. Farber, Steven & Páez, Antonio, 2009. "My car, my friends, and me: a preliminary analysis of automobility and social activity participation," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 216-225.
    10. Ayona Datta, 2014. "Gendered Nature and Urban Culture: The Dialectics of Gated Developments in Izmir, Turkey," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1363-1383, July.
    11. Jonas Larsen, 2017. "The making of a pro-cycling city: Social practices and bicycle mobilities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(4), pages 876-892, April.
    12. Collins, Damian & Kearns, Robin A., 2010. "Walking school buses in the Auckland region: A longitudinal assessment," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 1-8, January.
    13. Luca Nitschke, 2020. "Reconstituting Automobility: The Influence of Non-Commercial Carsharing on the Meanings of Automobility and the Car," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-20, August.
    14. Wilson, Adam & Mitra, Raktim, 2020. "Implementing cycling infrastructure in a politicized space: Lessons from Toronto, Canada," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    15. Wilson, Sharon & Hannam, Kevin, 2017. "The frictions of slow tourism mobilities: Conceptualising campervan travel," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 25-36.
    16. Hirschhorn, Fabio & Paulsson, Alexander & Sørensen, Claus H. & Veeneman, Wijnand, 2019. "Public transport regimes and mobility as a service: Governance approaches in Amsterdam, Birmingham, and Helsinki," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 178-191.
    17. Gordon Waitt & Theresa Harada, 2012. "Driving, Cities and Changing Climates," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(15), pages 3307-3325, November.
    18. Lake Sagaris, 2015. "Lessons from 40 years of planning for cycle‐inclusion: Reflections from Santiago, Chile," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(1), pages 64-81, February.
    19. Wilson, Sharon & Chambers, Donna & Johnson, James, 2019. "VW campervan tourists' embodied sonic experiences," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 14-23.
    20. Maria Juschten & Shannon Page & Helen Fitt, 2020. "Mindsets Set in Concrete? Exploring the Perspectives of Domestic Travellers on New Zealand’s (Auto-)Mobility Culture," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-21, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cityxx:v:21:y:2017:i:3-4:p:329-347. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CCIT20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.