Description
Book SynopsisBike messengers are familiar figures in the downtown cores of major cities. Tasked with delivering time-sensitive materials within, at most, a few hoursand sometimes in as little as fifteen minutesthese couriers ride in all types of weather, weave in and out of dense traffic, dodging (or sometimes failing to dodge) taxis and pedestrians alike in order to meet their clients'' tight deadlines. Riding through midtown traffic at breakneck speeds is dangerous work, and most riders do it for very little pay and few benefits. As the courier industry has felt the pressures of first fax machines, then e-mails, and finally increased opportunities for electronic filing of legal paperwork, many of those who remain in the business are devoted to their job. For these couriers, messengering is the foundation for an all-encompassing lifestyle, an essential part of their identity. In Urban Flow, Jeffrey L. Kidder (a sociologist who spent several years working as a bike messenger) introduces r
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Urban Flow is a view of the cool urban culture that messengers have grown on the barren soil of the service economy, and reverberates with cycling's visceral pleasure.
* American Journal of Sociology *
Urban Flow's principle contribution is a call to sociologists of culture to more thoroughly examine emotions, space, and the relationship between the two; emotions are emplaced, and physical structures significantly shape interaction. Through what Kidder calls the 'affective appropriation of space' messengers resist the conformist, rationalized world of the city, affording moments, however small, of creativity and liberation.
-- Ross Haenfler * Qualitative Sociology *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Lure of Delivery
1. The Job
2. The Lifestyle
3. Men's Work and Dirty Work
4. Playing in Traffi
5. The Deep Play of Alleycats
6. The Aff ective Appropriation of Space
7. The Meaning of Messenger Style
Conclusion: The Politics of Appropriation
