Rowerowy ruch miejski. Konteksty powstania – konteksty działania [The Urban Bicycling Movement. Cont...

The article deals with the phenomenon of bicycling, which has become an object of interest and activism for urban movements. The emergence of grassroots movements in urban space demands attentive analysis of the circumstances that makesuch processes possible, according to A. Touraine. In this work we analyse the sociocultural context, inscribed in the conceptual apparatus of D. McAdam’s model of the political process, particularly useful in describing the development of urban movements. Using the analytical potential of A. Giddens’s concepts of reflexivity and structuration further enables understanding the process of institutional change in the urban public sphere, facilitating the emergence of urban movements. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate, using the example of the bicycle movement in contemporary Wrocław, how a change of sociocultural context has made the emergence of the bicycle movement as a real reflexive actor possible in the new institutional order in Polish cities. The conclusions reached in this work are the result of observing bicycle culture in Wrocław (from the positions of both participant-observer and observer) in recent years and analysing the results of research conducted as part of the 2014 Wrocław Social Diagnosis.