Promoting Active Mobility with Ecolinguistics

Promoting Active Mobility with Ecolinguistics
In spite of all the data showing us how active mobility can improve everybody’s health, well-being and safety, we struggle to reduce the number of cars occupying our streets and increase the number of people walking and cycling (Oosterhuis 2019). At the same time, newspapers and safety campaigns often stigmatise active mobility. One of the least visible reasons causing these difficulties is hidden in the language we use, which is influenced by the dominant neoliberal, growth-oriented discourse even when we are promoting active mobility (Caimotto 2020). This kind of language is particularly detrimental when aiming to promote cycling, given the deep “tight ideological symbiosis between the values promoted by automobility (individual freedom and autonomy) and the rationalities of neoliberalism” (Walks 2015, 10-11). An Ecolinguistic approach (Stibbe 2021) can help us recognise, create and reinforce the new stories that we need, if we really want to increase levels of walking and cycling, promote mobility justice and reframe the notion of well-being.

To attend this event, please register here.

Contact: ouvema@unil.ch

This presentation is part of the seminar series « Cycling: Good for the Heart, the Head and the Planet » organised by OUVEMA in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Centre for Sustainability, the Institute of Geography and Sustainability and the Institute of Sport Sciences of the University of Lausanne.