*2.2. The Field Approach and the Changes within a Field*

Although there are many variations/sub-approaches within the field approach, the basic idea is that "to think in terms of field is to think relationally" [34]. According to Bourdieu, the concept of a "field" refers to "a patterned system of objective forces (much in the manner of a magnetic field), a relational configuration endowed with a specific gravity which it imposes on all the objects and agents which enter it" [35]. The whole social world is treated as a space within which various actors occupy different (structured) positions according to the volume and form of the valued resources—namely, the capital they hold [36]. The relations between different actors within a field and how the actors modify/conserve their positions are the foci of the analyses. Besides "field", there are another two concepts highlighting the key concern of the approach: the first one is capital, which refers to the resources that are valuable and at stake in a specific field, and it is the medium through which positions are attained and struggles are organized. Another one is habitus. It refers to the strategy-generating principles that translate the structured/objective field relations into perceptions and actions, which enable the actors to orient their actions to various situations [37].

Change and conflicts—including other relevant aspects such as struggles and resistance—are key concerns in Bourdieu's analysis. The key concern is what and how changes are produced and re-produced within networked relations. According to Krause [38], there are three basic analytical dimensions: variation in field autonomy, variations of field autonomy, and variation in the field structure. The key point is that a field can be vulnerable to actors and elements from other fields. The ways that any given field is linked to other fields are the key concern of exploration [39]. Among various relational factors, the impact of technologies and devices on relational fields attracts more academic attention. For instance, the new data-based technology and journalism [40], the innovation of restaurant and gastronomy [41], and so on. The key point is to put technologies/innovations from other fields as an analytical object and to explore how they bring changes to the members within a certain field. In other words, to treat the impact of the "new" technologies on certain social and political relations based on the unequal distribution of resources. Therefore, the field approach enjoys the ability to simultaneously depict the relations between different involved actors around a certain issue, which contributes to our understanding of the changes that occurred in the urban cycling field in China.

#### *2.3. Public Bicycles, Smartphone-Based Sharing-Bicycles and the Governance of Them in China*

"Public bicycles" refer to the kind of rental bicycles with docks and/or stations, which are provided and operated by certain private or state-owned companies. It has grown rapidly in China since the Hangzhou government (Zhejiang Province) introduced them from European cities (The first public bicycle program in China emerged in Beijing in 2006. It was jointly operated by seven companies, but it failed quickly and made little impact. For more details, please refer to the webpage of "Public Bicycle in Beijing" http://bjggzxc.jtw.beijing.gov.cn/Home\_index\_1\_1.html, accessed on 3 August 2021), especially Paris. "Smartphone-Based Sharing-Bicycles" are different from public bicycles in that they do not have bicycle stations and can be unlocked/locked and charged through a mobile phone app (Table 1). This kind of "sharing bicycles" emerged in China in late 2015, and, as mentioned above, rapidly grew in many large Chinese cities in the past five years.


**Table 1.** Comparisons between public bicycles and Smartphone-Based Sharing-Bicycles 1.

<sup>1</sup> The source: the authors' experience and observation during the fieldwork, and the "Bicycle Data" collected by Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, refer to http://www.itdp-china.org/bikesharing/index/?lang=1, accessed 4 August 2021. The table is made by the authors.

> The rapid development of public bicycles and SBSBs provides new flexible and "green" choices for urban residents' daily travel [42]. They, however, also bring about certain negative consequences, like the occupation of public spaces, the road-safety risks, and so on [18], which call for the necessary governance of them [10]. Therefore, the emergence and transition of public bicycles and SBSBs is a representative case of how certain technological innovations (and the implementation of them) challenge the existing governance logic and system around a public issue [11], and how the manager—the government—reacts to the change and challenge [43].

> Although the number of studies in this field is growing rapidly, the research focusing on local mobility governance calls for more academic attention [15]. For now, existing studies in this direction generally focused on the decision-making and implementation processes of relevant local policies [44], the "failure of the market" regarding the SBSBs issue [45], and some other specific issues (like relevant legal matters and the division of responsibilities) of public bicycles and SBSBs [46]. These studies are insightful in exploring the failures/success of cycling governance. They, however, basically treat the new bicycles and the new system as the outcome of governance [17], as static elements outside the change process. According to the field approach mentioned above, however, the new kinds of bicycles, and the information and communications technology (ICT) technologies/devices installed on them [9], are in fact a kind of influential factor. Along with their emergence and extension, the social relations between existing actors within the cycling field in a city will change accordingly. In this article, we aim to help fill this knowledge gap with a study of the transition from public bicycles to SBSBs in Guangzhou, China.

#### **3. Methodology**

Guangzhou is the capital and the largest city in Guangdong Province in south-eastern China. At the moment, it is the third-largest Chinese city, behind Beijing and Shanghai, and it holds sub-provincial administrative status [47]. In 2015, the residential population within Guangzhou's administrative area was more than 13.5 million [48]. The role of urban cycling in Guangzhou's transportation system has experienced great change over the last three to four decades. Urban cycling in this city experienced a "promotion-reduction-repromotion" process [49]. Both public bicycles and SMSBs emerged and developed in the "repromotion" phase, which started in the first decade in the new century.

In this research, we adopted a qualitative case study approach to address the research questions because of its advantage in analyzing meanings, ideas, and changes over a relatively long period [50]. The data used in this paper stem from both documents and interviewees. In the first phase, we collected the existing documents and conducted a qualitative textual analysis [51]. The collected documents fit within five categories: the documents issued by the central government; the documents issued by the local government; the documents issued by the Guangdong Provincial Government and some national documents focusing on the regional development of the Pearl River Delta, where Guangzhou is located; and the documents issued or collected by pro-cycling NGOs (or semi-organized groups) in Guangzhou. In total, 61 relevant documents were collected for analysis. The analysis process consists of three rounds of text analysis focusing on three analytical categories: (1) Timeline: we coded all the information related to time (dates) in all documents to form a timeline framework; (2) Actors and Actions Categories: we distinguish three categories of involved actors: the government (central-regional-local), the market subjects [state-owned/private] and social actors (organized/unorganized) and sort out the actions of each type of subject according to the timeline; (3) Relations and Interactions Categories: we pick out the actions regarding more than one category of actors and preliminarily describe the relationship between different subjects.

Based on the qualitative text analysis, we further conducted semi-structured interviews and group discussions to obtain fruitful and in-depth data. From October 2016 to April 2017, we talked to more than 60 respondents through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. As the focus of this research is on governance changes, we conducted open-ended interviews guided by three basic questions/themes: (1) What has been different since public bicycles occurred? (2) What is the difference between public bicycles and SBSBs? (3) What has been different since SBSBs occur and extend? For different interviewees, the operationalization of the "what" in three questions is different but basically consists of four dimensions: daily mobility pattern and experience, the relationship and interaction among various actors (especially with the government), business model, and profit (mainly for managers of the cycling companies), attitude towards public bicycles and SBSBs. These questions and dimensions, however, are mainly a basic and open-ended guide for the interviewers' reference, and our basic logic is to follow the narrative logic of the respondents (In fact, compared with the passive title of "respondent"/"interviewee", we prefer to use the active title of "narrator" to refer to these information providers. However, in order not to confuse readers, we still use this title for the time being). According to the representativeness and effectiveness of the answers and eliminating duplicate information, we selected 25 interviewees as key ones. Table 2 shows the details of the key respondents.

