Dr. Matthew Masucci will present “After Mass: An Exploration of the San José Bike Party and Neo-Activist Bicycle Movements in North America” at NASSS (http://www.nasss.org/) North American Society for Sociology of Sport. Dr. Masucci will be joined by a number of faculty from the Department of Kinesiology at SJSU, who will be presenting on a range of topics.

NASSS 2012 Conference ; “SPORT IN PLACE”; NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, USA • November 7-10 2012

Here is the abstract for the research inclined.

Following multidisciplinary work that explores intersections between the bicycle and various social movements including; environmentalism and sustainability (Brown, Vergrat, Green & Berchicci, 2003; Horton, 2006; Blickstien, 2009), alternative transportation frameworks (Blickstein & Hanson, 2002; Carlsson) and social and political collectives (Black, 2008; St. John, 2004; Furness, 2005, 2007) this paper examines the emergence and proliferation of the San José Bike Party (SJBP). Originally conceived in 2004-2005 the SJBP takes place on the third Friday of each month and currently draws between 2000-4000 participants. Despite rhetoric eschewing the heavy-handed political activism of Critical Mass, the stated mission of “building community through bicycling” seems to be open to broad interpretation and implementation. As part of an ongoing ethnographic project that considers the contested meaning of the SJBP, this paper will briefly trace the contemporary history of bicycle movements and bicycle activism in North America and then situate the SJBP within theoretical framework/s of social, activist and identity movements connected to the bicycle.