Providing and confining mobility: the e-cargo bike as a technology of parenting

Abstract

The private car is widely used by parents as a technology to cocoon their children from car-dominated environments while facilitating structured opportunities for their development. Outside the car, parents travelling by active or public modes must intensively regulate their child’s mobilities. These parent-child mobilities can help to develop a child’s independent mobility in the future, without the car. In this study, I explore the unique experiences and practices of parent-child mobility with the e-cargo bike in the low-cycling context of Ireland. This analysis uncovers how e-cargo cycle parenting reproduces practices fundamental to car-parenting: providing mobility for children and confining mobility of children. As a (temporary) technology for providing mobility, the e-cargo bike was experienced as a superior form of automobility than the car for meeting everyday parental mobility demands. By segregating children from the street and immobilising them in a vehicle, the e-cargo bike functioned as a space of confinement. Unlike the car, the e-cargo bike afforded a unique sensitivity to the natural world and local environment. This enabled parents to train their children in local geography and responsible mobility, thereby building their competences for independent mobility in the future while normalising everyday mobility without the car.