Black Sounds, Black Spaces: Black Sonic Geographies and Biking in Post-apartheid Johannesburg

SCIS invites you to a seminar by Kristen L. Miller titled Black Sounds, Black Spaces: Black Sonic Geographies and Biking in Post-apartheid Johannesburg.

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) invites you to a seminar presented by Kristen L. Miller on Black Sounds, Black Spaces: Black Sonic Geographies and Biking in Post-apartheid Johannesburg. The hybrid session will take place on March 6th, 2025, online from 12:30 to 14:00 (SAST). You can also join us in person in the SCIS Seminar Room, North Lodge Building, Parktown Management Campus.

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 presentation, 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 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, during apartheid, 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 reconfigure the city and assert their presence within it. 

Bio:
Kristen L. Miller is a PhD candidate in sociology at the City University of New York (CUNY), Graduate Center. Her research focuses on Black subjectivity, culture, Black geographies, social movements, performance, emotions and embodiment. Her dissertation, Rideout: Freedom and Collective Movement in Black Biking Subcultures, is a multi-site ethnography examining the social world of Black biking communities in New York City and Johannesburg. Miller’s research has been supported by the Fulbright Research Award, The American Sociological Association, and CUNY’s Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative. As a Fulbirght Fellow, Kristen conducted fieldwork in Johannesburg and was a visiting researcher at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies. 

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