Talk: Socio-technical mobile devices of resistance

This talk was part of a symposium hosted by the Digital Cultures Research Centre in Lüneburg, University of Leuphana, Germany.

Technological Conditions of Interventions History, Epistemology, Dramaturgy Symposium · 19- 21 May, 2015

The talk was called: Socio-technical mobile devices of resistance: Victorian inventors, women cyclists and convertible cycle wear patents.

Abstract: Many middle and upper class Victorian women designed and lodged patents for ‘convertible’ cycle wear to address the twin problem of needing a safe and comfortable mobility costume and minimise potential social violence—verbal and physical assault—that often accompanied radically clothed mobile women in 1890s Britain. These material interventions, equipped with deliberately concealed engineering in the form of weights, pulleys, tucks and folds built into their dress, enabled women to adapt clothing on the move. Drawing on STS, archival data and patents I critically explore these heterogeneous human and non-human devices as strategies of creative socio-technical resistance.

A review of the event including all the other talks is here.

This talk became a chapter in a open access DCRL book:
Jungnickel, K. 2017. Socio-Technical Mobile Devices of Resistance: Victorian inventors, women cyclists and convertible cycle wear patents, In Caygill, H., Leeker, M and Schulze, T. (eds) Inventions in Digital Cultures: Action, Resistance, Critique, Digital Cultures Research Lab, Leüphana University, Germany