Paper short abstract:

The paper introduces an international community of bicycle messengers. By using examples of courier groups in Europe I will show how couriers fitted themselves into an unfavourable environment of the city, and through their own community celebrations, the group managed to tame the public sphere.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I want to introduce a specific international community which was born in a modern city, and became a source of identification namely: Bicycle Messengers. This professional group was based on an occupation that one does, but it would be impossible to understand some of the couriers' attitudes without placing them in a local context, the environment in which they work and live: the city. The city which is the best characterized by the fact of heterogeneity and a problem of social inequality and division of labor. Since most of the cities are constituted by the prestige and ceremonial functions found in a state society, the most powerful, superior, and the winners of the city are those that are most likely to fulfill this function. Placed in a such context, coming from very different backgrounds, very often out of town, or even a country in which they work, having relatively low economic and educational status, bicycle messengers are not the one to be on the top of the hierarchy and prestige ladder.

What more, in their work messengers are entering the world which is originally reserved only for those from the top of the hierarchy: expensive offices, places where the biggest money and political decisions are made. On the other hand most of their time, messengers spend on the streets; here there are often subjects of violence and aggression, they have to fight for their own space and rights with other road users: car drivers, pedestrians. Depending on the different city organization and policy, this might cause more or less tensions, and influences the local styles of the group. A style in which messengers describe themselves as modern spatial and symbolic transgressors, urban legend, Hermes' minion, the winged one, the guy who thinks he's the toughest, looniest cat around because he gets paid the fat bills to ride a bike fast through hell's nine circles delivering the important packages for the important clients.

In this paper I will present an ethnographic description, of two courier communities of Warsaw and Copenhagen, chosen from the many similar existing in Europe, USA, Australia, and even Japan. By using the example of those two, I want to identify specific local influences like different work and economic systems, and varying urban environments, that shape the particular styles of those groups.

I will show how this community fitted itself in a unfavorable environment of the city. I will show how with the use of their own community celebrations organized in a strict core of the city, both local and a international events like alleycats, critical masses, European and World Bicycle Messengers Championships: few days long parties, races and meetings, the group tamed public sphere, and deserved to call: The cities belong to us! We are the Kings of the Cities!

Finally, description of this hermetic community, created by the people who share the same occupation, its strong masculine character and ideology which is in opposition to establishment ideas, became a reason for the deeper study of the processes shaping social movements, communities and individual identity in the post modern era and urban environment. But also, for me as a young female ethnographer it was a great methodological challenge: getting into a male dominated group, and doing my fieldwork on a bicycle and racing in a city.