TY - JOUR
T1 - Kin-aesthetics, ideology, and the cycling tour
T2 - The performance of territory in the Israeli Giro d’Italia
AU - Mutter, Samuel
N1 - Funding Information:
Interestingly, however, the kin-aesthetics of this process themselves lend to it the propensity to overflow, allowing for the tracing of connections which would not otherwise be exposed. Whilst the coverage bypasses the tensions surrounding the Bedouin, it inadvertently draws into relation two sites which highlight them: first, the Bedouin tent, and then, minutes later, a ‘liman’, an underground dam for collecting floodwater (32ʹ20”). By making the connection between and showing the proximity of these contrasting aesthetics – one a tent in dusty brown barren desert; the other a lush, oasis-like pool of deep blues and greens, surrounded by palm trees – the tour produces a moment of dissonance or non-sense. In doing so, it brings attention to the controversy of limans in the Negev. These sites are funded by the Jewish National Fund, a non-profit organisation with a history of involvement in the purchasing of land for illegal Israeli settlements. The instance of kin-aesthetic dissonance thus betrays the political struggles of the region, disturbing assumed orders and questioning the coherence of the territory and the Bedouin’s place within it.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2022/1/9
Y1 - 2022/1/9
N2 - Addressing the strange case of the Israeli Giro d’Italia–wherein the opening stages of the Italian cycling tour’s 2018 edition were hosted 2000 km away, by a country with little cycling heritage–the paper poses the question, not ‘Why Israel?’ but ‘Why cycling?’. In response, it draws on theory at the intersection of mobilities, aesthetics, and ideology, together with an empirical analysis of the Israeli Giro’s TV coverage, to claim that the cycling tour–both historically, and in its contemporary form as a mediatised ‘mega-event’–is characterised by a uniquely ‘kin-aesthetic’ capacity. This capacity performs and orders territorial identities as coherent, self-evident wholes, thus enacting an ideological ‘illusion of closure’. Consequently, the article calls for greater critical attention not only to mega-events in general, but to the cycling tour specifically: the ways in which it performs territory, and the potential of such kin-aesthetic devices to work ideologically, concealing division and debate.
AB - Addressing the strange case of the Israeli Giro d’Italia–wherein the opening stages of the Italian cycling tour’s 2018 edition were hosted 2000 km away, by a country with little cycling heritage–the paper poses the question, not ‘Why Israel?’ but ‘Why cycling?’. In response, it draws on theory at the intersection of mobilities, aesthetics, and ideology, together with an empirical analysis of the Israeli Giro’s TV coverage, to claim that the cycling tour–both historically, and in its contemporary form as a mediatised ‘mega-event’–is characterised by a uniquely ‘kin-aesthetic’ capacity. This capacity performs and orders territorial identities as coherent, self-evident wholes, thus enacting an ideological ‘illusion of closure’. Consequently, the article calls for greater critical attention not only to mega-events in general, but to the cycling tour specifically: the ways in which it performs territory, and the potential of such kin-aesthetic devices to work ideologically, concealing division and debate.
KW - kin-aesthetics
KW - mobility
KW - ideology
KW - mega-events
KW - cycling
KW - Israel
KW - territory
KW - Kin-aesthetics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122725060&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17450101.2021.2021378
DO - 10.1080/17450101.2021.2021378
M3 - Article
SN - 1745-0101
VL - 17
SP - 501
EP - 516
JO - Mobilities
JF - Mobilities
IS - 4
ER -