Dave et al,
Would it be too ambitious to propose a stream of provocative debates
running throughout the conference - perhaps at the same time each day?
I suggest this as I would like to see *all* of Dave's topics covered,
and they can't all fit into one session! A few comments on the detail:
>1) I like the idea of an informal fringe meeting, which presumably would
>provide us all with at least one structured opportunity to meet up during
>the conference, and also potentially and hopefully enable the expansion of
>our network. Having never been to a Velo-City I don't know how fringe
>meetings work, but I assume we can drink wine and beer, and have a bit of a
>do?!
>
>
I don't think they've had such a thing before, so the scope should be
fairly open.
>I like John and Paul's ideas, and think they fit what we're about. I'd
>happily propose or second, for example, something like "cycling is cultural
>all the way down" (though that seems remarkably uncontentious, doesn't
>it?!).
>
>
I think it would be useful to have something that allows clearly
polarised perspectives to be presented, before discussion leads
everybody to agree with each other ... so I'd suggest extending this to
something like 'Infrastructure and technology are irrelevant to cycling
policy as cycling is a cultural activity'. (Makes me want to add the
word 'Discuss.')
>Another idea for a staged debate, which might resonate with our
>interests/expertise, could be a methodological one. We could start, for
>example, from a statement such as "Current research into cycling tends to be
>dominated by quantitative methodologies, and needs better to appreciate the
>understandings derived from qualitative approaches", or - more bluntly -
>"research into cycling needs to jettison quantitative in favour of
>qualitative methodologies".
>
>
This would be a nice topic to cover as I have examples of researchers
arguing both ways - quantitative people saying it's too qualitative
(that was in one of the Leeds ITS papers you were involved with,
Matthew!), and qualitative people saying it's too quantitative. In
fact, in my review of cycling research I found the balance fairly even -
though the depth of qualitative analysis in a lot of studies may not be
up to much. (Incidentally, sorry for the delay sending out copies of
that review report to those who asked - they are on my desk to go out,
in the next week or two.) So we should be able to get protagonists for
both sides.
>More overtly politically, but probably more idiosyncratically, I'd also be
>interested in something along the lines of "You can't promote cycling
>without criminalising the car" or "Cyclists need more consciously to forge a
>global social movement".
>
>
The first of these could be good for bringing in a wide range of
participants - techies and policy people interested in the reallocation
of roadspace and congestion charging, plus more ideological
perspectives. Oh, and Jeremy Clarkson.
Enough from me!
Paul
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