Black Sonic Geographies and Biking in Post-apartheid Johannesburg

• In Event: 30801 - Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) Research Session I

Abstract

Shaped by the enduring legacies of apartheid, Johannesburg remains one of the most unequal and racially segregated cities in the world. While formal segregation is no longer the law, economic barriers and infrastructural mechanisms–ranging from high walls and private security to exclusionary zoning and “boomed-off” streets–continue to limit Black people’s ability to move through and access the city. In this paper, I examine how Black cyclists use sound to navigate and contest these spatial restrictions. Drawing on a year and a half of ethnographic immersion within two Black bicycling groups–The Banditz Bicycle Club and Street Friends– I explore how through the blasting of a range of Black music genres–from Jazz to Gqom and Amapiano bikers generate new modes of relation to the city that destabilize the spatial workings of the city’s enduring apartheid geography. These groups’ weekly rides bring together ten to fifty bikers—often on bikes they build themselves—to perform tricks, blast music, and move through areas that, only thirty years ago, they could not freely enter. Through the collective playing of music, spontaneous group singing, and conversations that the songs ignite, I show how bikers create a Black sonic geography–through which they remap the city and assert their presence within it.

Author

• Kristen Lynn Miller, CUNY-Graduate Center