Jim Hasenauer: Stranger to Stakeholder to Partner

Part 1 of 2

Jim Hasenauer is a member of the the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, as well as being a Professor Emeritus at Cal State-Northridge. A founding member of IMBA and having served as one its presidents, and also a founding member of the Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Association (Los Angeles), Jim has been at the center of all things mountain biking for what now spans/is going into five decades. Graciously, he has offered to do a 4-part Q&A series with us here at MTBeer, like we did with Dave and Ted last year.

To get things started with Jim, he has given us permission to post/publish a paper he wrote in 1998. Yes, it’s long. I am going to have to post it in 2 parts, as the word length is too long for one Substack newsletter. Given the year he wrote it, I think it offers tremendous historical overview while also providing striking insight to what is happening today within our little world of mountain biking.

More on Jim here: https://mmbhof.org/jim-hasenauer/

Here we go, Part 1 of 2 — Stranger to Stakeholder to Partner: The Mobilization of Constituency on Public Lands

Stranger to Stakeholder to Partner: The Mobilization of Constituency on Public Lands

A Paper Presented to the Environmental Communication Commission Panel:

Environmental Conflict, Consensus, Collaboration, or Co-existence?  Influencing Elements in Multi-party, Multi-objective Land Use Issues

National Communication Association 1998 Convention

New York, New York

November 20-24, 1998

Jim Hasenauer, Associate Professor

Department of Communication Studies

California State University at Northridge

Northridge,  CA 91330-8257

Stranger to Stakeholder to Partner: The Mobilization of Constituency on Public Lands

Abstract: Managing the use of public recreational land is often marked by a high potential for disputes among competing user groups, management agencies, and adjacent communities regarding appropriate use.  This tension can easily escalate into undesirable and unproductive, contentious conflict.  Using principles of intercultural communication and social movement theory, this study analyzes the evolving relationship between mountain cyclists and land management agencies.  In the mid-1980s, when mountain bicycling emerged as a popular outdoor recreation activity, early relations with land managers and the pre-existing community of trail users led cyclists to form organizations to formally represent them.  These organizations have been generally successful in establishing cooperative rather than antagonistic relations with the management agencies.  By examining the dialogue among land managers and organized mountain cyclist organizations concerning fact, value and policy issues, this analysis identifies the stakeholder intersections and the communicative choices that encouraged collaboration rather than conflict.  The author invites further communication research in this arena.

This paper is an attempt to offer communication studies practitioners an historical  framework for understanding a fruitful area of applied research in the praxis of public land use planning.  The integration of recreational mountain biking into the mix of trail recreation has presented a definable history of organizational development, message exchange, events and decisions open to a potentially rich exploration of concepts central to our discipline.  These include core concepts of intercultural communication, social movement theory, inter-group conflict processes and resolution,  and rhetorical analysis.  I have a number of reasons for wanting to stimulate and encourage research in all aspects of this context and  I invite your interest.

Eyes and Ears Open, I’m Positioned

I have been involved with mountain bike organizations for more than 11 years; I’ve been riding for 14.  I am on the Board of Directors of IMBA, the International Mountain Bicycling Association which promotes environmentally sound and socially responsible mountain biking.  I have served as IMBA’s president (1991-1996) and two years ago, on sabbatical,  I served as IMBA’s Director of Education.  I was also co-founder and served 10 years on the board of a local mountain bike club, CORBA, the Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Association in Los Angeles.  I also serve on the boards of NORBA, the National Off-Road Bicycle Association and its parent corporation USA Cycling.  These last two regulate bicycle racing in the United States and interface with Olympic and international bike racing organizations..

I have been personally involved in many of the initiatives that affect mountain biking on trails.  I have met with high level federal, state and local land managers and with the representatives of other environmental and trail user groups.  I have written for bike magazines and have co-authored two guidebooks to trails in my local Santa Monica Mountains (Hasenauer and Langton, 1994, 1998).  It’s fair to say I’ve been a leader in the direction the sport has taken and I’ve been recognized for these efforts. 

I’m also a card carrying  environmentalist and belong or have belonged to several local, regional and national land protection and preservation organizations.  I am politically active on environmental issues, especially the Americans for Our Heritage and Recreation coalition’s efforts to revitalize the Land And Water Conservation Fund which provides money from off shore oil drilling to put land in permanent, public protection.  To me these are compatible, complementary identities. In fact, to me they are one identity.  My environmental commitments and my passion for mountain bike riding nourish each other. 

Of course, the other identity I bring to this project is an academic professing speech communication theory and practice. I teach courses in communication theory, gender and communication, interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, and public speaking argument and advocacy.  I’ve come to see my environmentalism and commitment to mountain biking integrated as well. 

My early advocacy efforts merely engaged my debate and communication experience as I pursued my self interest and took on what I felt was defective decision making.  As my involvement increased over time,  I realized the breadth of communication principles and practices imbedded in these conversations on recreational land use. The boundaries between my advocacy and teaching blurred.  I’ve used my academic training and skills in the service of the environmental community and reciprocally, my mountain biking and environmental activism have enriched my teaching and thinking about communication (Hasenauer 1998a, 1998b). My university has supported my work in environmental education and community building.

I want to continue to integrate these identities and this paper is an attempt to do that.  I’m clearly a “participant observer” here with all the baggage that implies.  I’ll try to be fair and I’ll appreciate your feedback and direction.

Strangers 

In a popular textbook in Intercultural Communication, Gudykunst and Kim (1992) argue that a key to understanding relations between culturally different individuals is to appreciate the phenomenon of the “stranger”.  Simmel (1950/1908) introduced the concept as a relational term, a way of positioning both the knower and the known. In encountering strangers, there is a sense of difference, of uncertainty, of anxiety, even of danger.  Communication with the stranger is inherently problematic.  There is a tendency to stereotype strangers since we lack personal knowledge about them.  They are frequently subject to prejudice, especially prejudice rooted in ethnocentrism and in-group solidarity.

Intercultural affairs in our cities often swing on relations between strangers. These are played out in social dramas related to immigration, cultural diversity and race.  Ultimately, the strength of our communities derives from strangers’ and familiars’ ability to find common ground, to begin to understand, and to cooperate for a common good.  This is the essential problem of communication--“to share or make common” when we are not the same.

This paper uses the stranger construct and a number of others to illustrate the tension between familiars and strangers in another type of  community.  The recreational trails community, specifically the non-motorized, muscle powered  trail community, is a loosely tied collection of individuals and groups who share a passion for backcountry recreation.  This community has a common interest, but is defined by activities that are frequently experienced alone or in small groups.  Members of the  trail community present themselves as recreational users of the environment and usually as protectors and preservers of that environment.  For most, the value of backcountry recreation is experienced in the encounter with nature.   The internal contradiction of use vs protection resides close to the surface, thus trail groups must justify their activity as environmentally appropriate and often promote an ethic of minimal impact, leave no trace behavior.  Muscle powered backcountry trail users include hikers, equestrians, runners, skiers and most recently mountain bicyclists.  These latter are the strangers in this analysis.

When mountain bikers emerged on the trails used by pre-existing trail communities in the mid-1980's they were treated as strangers, as different and dangerous.  Their visibility given their numbers, their equipment  and their behavior had been taken to be a threat by the existing trail community.  Like many naive newcomers, they assumed they would be accepted and their commonalities with the existing community would be recognized. It was a rude awakening. Mountain bikers organized to legitimize themselves by appealing to the values and processes of land managers and these other groups.

This scenario continues to be played out today and is related to reaching some critical mass.  A few riders are tolerated, even welcomed as eccentric or exotic.  When larger numbers emerge, there has often been a mobilizing effort against mountain bikers on trails.  This would be marked by complaints to land managers and the adoption of anti-bike positions by traditional trail groups.  The cyclists would also mobilize and this contributed to intensified perceptions of in-group vs out-group social conflict.

In places where this conflict is now long lived, e.g., in the San Francisco Bay area, in New York metro, in Los Angeles, or in Seattle, the years of conflict and the perception of it as a zero sum game have made it even harder to reach rapprochement.  Consciously and unconsciously the groups antagonize each other.  Both groups have exaggerated their differences, ignored their commonalities and forfeited their good will.   In Los Angeles recently, one long time hiking trail leader left a meeting declaring “This is war.”

In contrast, sometimes mountain biking emerged where there was no pre-existing trail community.  In these cases, cyclists, hikers and equestrians sometimes joined forces to support some park goal or to limit some adverse development.  From the start, they recognized their affinity.  There were no strangers.  This development foreshadowed the end state that is being achieved in those more contentious contexts only after significant, proactive work by cyclists.

A Short History

In 1981, Specialized Bicycle Company introduced the “Stumpjumper”, the first mass produced mountain bicycle.  The bike was modeled on a small number of custom made mountain bikes built in Marin County, California in the 70's although it’s worth noting that there have been bicycles on dirt roads and trails since the bicycle came to the United States in the late 1800's.  These new mountain bikes though had greater flexibility.  They were relatively light, multi-geared and strong enough to endure long off-road rides on rough, rocky,  primitive trails.  The introduction of the mountain bicycle revived a stagnant bicycle industry.  It boomed.  Technological advances in materials, suspension and mechanical advantage continue.

When mountain bicycling first became popular, land managers didn’t know what to expect from the activity and its participants.  Many were justifiably cautious.  There was an abundance of data used to guide decisions on other types of motorized and non-motorized recreation, but virtually nothing about off-road bicycles.  The concerns and complaints of hikers and equestrians, especially in urban fringe areas led some land managers to close trails.  Cyclists organized to prevent and reverse these closures and an incipient social movement was born.   In 1983, the National Off Road Bicyclists Association was founded and took up the mission of “land access” as well as rules for competition.  By 1988, NORBA focused exclusively on racing and had relinquished its advocacy work.  The International Mountain Bicycling Association was formed by five local California clubs.  IMBA’s objectives were:

1) to promote the sport of mountain bicycling by educating riders in safe, responsible and courteous cycling,

2) to facilitate the formation of local mountain bicycle clubs,

3) to act as a clearinghouse of information for the advocacy             of land access at all levels of   government,

4) to lead the advocacy effort at the national level

5) and to promote appreciation of and care for recreational   lands by mountain bicyclists.        (IMBA, 1988)

Now there are some 10-15 million mountain bicyclists, more than 300 local mountain bike clubs, and IMBA  has more than 14,000 members.  The sport is diverse, encompassing a range of riding interests and styles from the occasional bikepath rider to world class, competitive athletes. (Mountain biking appeared as an Olympic Sport in Atlanta in 1996).  Recreational riders make up the bulk of the sport’s numbers.  They are served by six national,  monthly magazines specifically aimed at mountain bike riders.