Motorcycles, body and risk: The motorcyclists’ social career

Abstract

In this article, I approach motorcycling as a learning process. The main concept used is that of the social career, as advanced by Erving Goffman and David Matza. I highlight the specific bodily practices and risks that occur in the successive stages of a motorcyclist’s social career. Throughout their career as motorcyclists, riders learn how to manage successive risks. The riding body may be approached as a case of voluntary risk-taking, a structural factor identified in many contemporary societies. Motorcycling is thus similar to hang gliding, skydiving, scuba diving or rock climbing. The study is based on data gathered from the main online motorcycling forum in Romania, participant observation carried out among motorcyclists in Romania in 2008 and 2009, and conversations and interviews with motorcyclists. I suggest that the risk implied by using motorcycles depends on the stage that a person is at in his or her social career.