Driven to sanity

An ethnographic critique of the senses in automobilities

Bibliographic Data

ID12351069
AuthorsAndrew Dawson (0000-0003-3285-3537, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume28
Issue1
Pages3-20
Publication date2015-10-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Australian Journal of Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1035-8811 • E-ISSN: 1757-6547
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/taja.12168
OpenAlexW2134830767
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited48

This article reviews critically approaches to embodiment and the senses in contemporary automobilities research, highlighting particularly their critical representation of sensory disengagement in driving. In contrast, through passenger‐seat ethnography conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the article explores the roles of sensory engagement in driving in ameliorating post‐socialist and post‐war unease concerning namely identification, mistrust, insecurity and estrangement. Globally cars are the largest single item of consumer expenditure after housing, and the consequences of this are manifold and devastating. In this context it becomes pressingly important to understand why people drive as much as they do and, as part of this, how driving makes us feel. In order to achieve this automobilities research must, I argue, stand back from its disposition of critique and develop a more thoroughgoing ethnography of driving. Anthropology is beginning to provide this, albeit sparsely and belatedly. This article represents a contribution

Aesthetics · Context (archaeology · Disengagement theory · Economics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Identification (biology · Neoliberalism (international relations · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Sanity · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Philosophy · Sex work and related issues

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