Geopolitics of the Dakar Rally: International Impediments Threatening Cultural, Religious, and Ecological Harmony Among Motorcyclists
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DOI: 10.1515/irsr-2012-0025 IRSR INTERNATIONAL REVIEW of SOCIAL RESEARCH Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2012, 17-41 International Review of Social Research Geopolitics of the Dakar Rally: International Impediments Threatening Cultural, Religious, and Ecological Harmony among Motorcyclists Lisiunia A. ROMANIENKO• Wroclaw University Abstract: The contemporary popularity of motorcycling has resulted in a booming manufacturing industry as well as the emergence of a unique culture revolving around very specific forms of material cultural capital. Industry research focusing exclusively on the economic impact of motorcycling gravely underestimates the social and cultural consequences that have been brought about as a result of these ecological alternatives in personal mobility. As routine riding in overcrowded urban environments becomes more and more problematic, motorcyclists find themselves yearning for the self-exile available through the wide open spaces of desert environs in order to optimize the emancipatory potential of this sensual technological Bohemian experience on two wheels. To that end, off road motorcyclists have organized rallies such as the Dakar in unique geological environments to provide riders the technology-driven mystical catharsis they are seeking. Using evidence gathered from ethnographic fieldwork, film portrayals, and contemporary public policies; the paper demonstrates that the widespread popularity of off-road motorcycling and related intercultural harmony represents a significant threat to the routinization of conflict driving the hegemonic world order. Keywords: Dakar Rally, technological determinism, off-road motorcycling, postmaterialism. If you’re tired of famines, try self-sufficiency. Nicolas Sarkozy, official address to the people of Senegal, two months into his election as President of France1 Introduction these two-wheeled mobility machines in advanced industrialized nations. Contemporary studies focusing on While market research focusing on motorcycling have generally been the successful strategies of dominating limited to the economic ramifications of brands of motorcycles such as Harley •e-mail: [email protected]. Lisiunia A. Romanienko (BA Rutgers University, MS New School University, PhD Wroclaw University Poland) is a motorcyclist who conducted much of this research while a Visiting Scholar at Suez Canal University in Egypt. Her research documenting the rise of indigenous knowledge and postmaterial resistance to the colonizing consciousness has been recently published by Palgrave Macmillan, Body Piercing and Identity, 2011. Thanks to Asef Bayat, Wael Kaddour, Belal A. Soliman, and several anonymous reviewers for their assistance in the preparation of this manuscript. © University of Bucharest, October 2012 18 | IRSR Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2012 Davidson (Stanfield, 1992; Schouten forms of technological innovation. and McAlexander, 1995), BWW Typically limited to interesting (Welsh, 2006), Piaggio (Hebdege, footnotes in otherwise generic critical 1900), and others have made significant analysis in the philosophy of science contributions to our understanding of and technology, the motorcycle product demands articulated among as machine has been dismissed as consumers in the west (Alt, 1982); yet another form of exploitative the social, cultural, and political technology transfer that runs the risk consequences of motorcycling beyond of technological determinism, defined industrialized markets have somehow by Mackay and Gillespie (1992, failed to capture the interest of social 686) as ‘the notion that technological scientists. While gravely overlooked in development is autonomous with contemporary analyses, motorcycling respect to society; it shapes society, remains nevertheless, an increasingly but is not reciprocally influenced.’ globalized political and ecological While perhaps accurate with regard to phenomenon, whose popularity is the subjugating environmental, social, no longer limited to testosterone- and cultural consequences of certain driven big brand distribution around destructive machines; these critiques the western world (Mellstrom, 2002; have little universal applicability to Donald-Walker, 2000; Pierson, 1997). motorcycle technology, whose design The demand for motorcycles in the is profoundly influenced both by Middle and Far East now exceeds the end users and the social structure to consumption patterns in the United which the technology applies. Road States and Europe, with steadily preferences, ruggedness of geology, increasing proportions of two-wheeled predilection or aversion toward risk, transportation represented by riders desired sensual impact, sensory and in developing cultural contexts. aesthetic inclinations of riders, as According to Thompson (2000, 100-7), well as many other social, cultural, and environmental considerations are The motorcycle was and still is an all exogenous but highly significant essential mode of transportation factors that have historically for millions of people around influenced the evolution of motorcycle the world. In 1997 there were technology and design. Failure of some 126,508,878 powered ‘two- social scientists to distinguish the wheelers in use’ around the world, unique reciprocal relationship between and of those some 45,111,479 were motorcycle technology and humanity being ridden in Taiwan, Thailand, or motorcycle technology and nature– and India. has resulted in the dissemination Beyond the myopic social scientific of misinformative analyses that focus on the economic impact of disregards the numerous complex dominating motorcycle brands in factors beyond marketing principles industrialized western contexts, that truly influences motorcycling another serious weakness of existing around the world. Rather than literature is the failure to distinguish capture the complex integrative and motorcycle technologies from other harmonious characteristics of touring Lisiunia A. Romanienko Geopolitics of the Dakar Rally | 19 and other day-to-day technological Data obtained from interviews with applications, uninitiated business- participants and other stakeholders, oriented social scientists who are triangulated with content analysis of not familiar with the overwhelming popular film portrayals, and further impact of consumer demand and validated through coercive public terrain in research and development policies suggests that this peculiar driving motorcycle technology have unification taking place transpires not disregarded the unifying potential only among historically fragmented of machine, humanity, and nature groups based on ethnic, gender, and Instead, social scientific critiques of racial identities; but also serves to technology have erroneously reduced harmoniously reinforce humanity’s the relationship between humans and relationship with one another, with machines as one contingent upon nature, and with her machines. In the rejection of other humans. As addition to integrating humanity, summarized by Purdy (1984), ‘time nature, and technology; the analysis spent with a machine is time spent also intends to demonstrate that it is away from humans.’ Motorcycle precisely the diverse road, ruggedness, technology as conceptualized and risk, and other sensual needs of designed for challenging geological contemporary motorcyclists that conditions found throughout the significantly influence the avant-garde Middle East and other desert environs technologies that make participation dramatically contradicts this and many in extreme rallies like Dakar humanly other arguments espoused by science possible. But inspirational cutting- and technology critics. The antithesis edge motorcycle technologies alone of deterministic critiques, motorcycle cannot provide the conditions to technology facilitating the Dakar Rally assure success in overcoming the and other enduro events is providing unpredictable challenges presented by two-wheeled off-road enthusiasts the terrain found in the region under with unprecedented opportunities investigation. Resilient riders working for cultural and ecological harmony in cooperative technical teams are that actually unifies fragmented crucial in facilitating the harmony and communities and minimizes social cooperation that are fundamental for distances across the historic, economic, preparation for events like Dakar. The and developmental divide bifurcating depth of the harmony and cooperation east from west, north from south. necessary among riders and indigenous Quite contrary to notions of technical and support communities that technological determinism, the current has made Dakar a consistent success analysis intends to demonstrate that for the past thirty years has, in fact, Dakar and other adventure rallies been so pervasive, that it represents provide unprecedented opportunities a significant threat to existing special for the [re]unification of fragmented interests underlying exploitative social, cultural, and technological socioeconomic and cultural world communities, based on shared systemic arrangements. understandings and affective sentiment Before examining these contro- surrounding motorcycle technology. versial propositions in greater detail, 20 | IRSR Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2012 it may be useful to describe the Arab Emirates. The political, cultural, analytic inductive [AI] approach religious, ecological, and technological used in the current treatment. In factors contributing to the enormous contrast to the validation inherent in popularity of motorcycling that were deductive