Car Cultures

Car Cultures PDF Author: Daniel Miller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100018143X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Anyone who assumes that a car is simply a means to get from point A to point B, or who even thinks that they know what a car is, should read this book. Profoundly shaped by culture, the car gives rise to a wide range of emotions, from guilt about the environment in the UK to aboriginal concerns with car corpses, to struggles to keep the creatures alive with everything but the proper spare parts in West Africa. Cars and their landscapes prove central to human life from its most intimate to the widest sense of global crisis, and are capable of inspiring epic passions. From road rage in Western Europe to the struggles of cab driving in Africa to the emergence of Black identity in the US, this book examines the essential humanity of the car, which includes the jealousies, gender differences, fears and moralities that cars give rise to. Firmly grounded in detailed ethnographic and historical scholarship, this is the first book to provide an informed sense of cars as one of the most familiar and significant forms of material culture.

Car Cultures

Car Cultures PDF Author: Daniel Miller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100018143X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book Here

Book Description
Anyone who assumes that a car is simply a means to get from point A to point B, or who even thinks that they know what a car is, should read this book. Profoundly shaped by culture, the car gives rise to a wide range of emotions, from guilt about the environment in the UK to aboriginal concerns with car corpses, to struggles to keep the creatures alive with everything but the proper spare parts in West Africa. Cars and their landscapes prove central to human life from its most intimate to the widest sense of global crisis, and are capable of inspiring epic passions. From road rage in Western Europe to the struggles of cab driving in Africa to the emergence of Black identity in the US, this book examines the essential humanity of the car, which includes the jealousies, gender differences, fears and moralities that cars give rise to. Firmly grounded in detailed ethnographic and historical scholarship, this is the first book to provide an informed sense of cars as one of the most familiar and significant forms of material culture.

Car Cultures

Car Cultures PDF Author: Daniel Miller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Anyone who assumes that a car is simply a means to get from point A to point B, or who even thinks that they know what a car is, should read this book. Profoundly shaped by culture, the car gives rise to a wide range of emotions, from guilt about the environment in the UK to aboriginal concerns with car corpses, to struggles to keep the creatures alive with everything but the proper spare parts in West Africa. Cars and their landscapes prove central to human life from its most intimate to the widest sense of global crisis, and are capable of inspiring epic passions. From road rage in Western Europe to the struggles of cab driving in Africa to the emergence of Black identity in the US, this book examines the essential humanity of the car, which includes the jealousies, gender differences, fears and moralities that cars give rise to. Firmly grounded in detailed ethnographic and historical scholarship, this is the first book to provide an informed sense of cars as one of the most familiar and significant forms of material culture.

Cars and Culture

Cars and Culture PDF Author: Rudi Volti
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801883996
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
A succinct yet comprehensive history, Cars and Culture highlights the technical changes that altered the appearance and performance of automobiles, along with the myriad forces that have shaped the car's development.

Car Troubles

Car Troubles PDF Author: Jim Conley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317169816
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Car Troubles central premise is that the car as the dominant mode of travel needs to be problematized. It examines a wide range of issues that are central to automobility by situating it within social, economic, and political contexts, and by combining social theory, specific case studies and policy-oriented analysis. With an international team of contributors the book provides a coherent and comprehensive analysis of the global phenomenon of automobility from the Anglo world to the cases in China and Chile and all the elements that relate to it.

Consumer Culture

Consumer Culture PDF Author: Celia Lury
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 081355067X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
The second edition of Consumer Culture explores the nature and role of consumption in modern societies. Celia Lury's up-to-date revision of this successful classic establishes the importance of new object-based studies for consumer culture, and incorporates new chapters on branding and the rise of ethical consumption. Drawing on a wide range of studies, and using contemporary illustrations from the media and popular culture, Lury examines the emergence of consumer culture and the changing relations between the production and consumption of cultural goods. She argues that consumer culture has become increasingly stylized and now provides an important context for everyday creativity. This new edition of Consumer Culture explores the way in which the position of individuals within social groups and their position in social groups structured by class, gender, race, and age affects the nature of their participation in consumer culture. The powerful role consumption plays in our lives is revealed and consumer culture is seen to provide new ways of creating social and political identities.

In the Company of Cars

In the Company of Cars PDF Author: Sarah Redshaw
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1317117786
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
It has long been accepted that the social and cultural meanings of the car far exceed the practical need for mobility. This book marks the first attempt to contribute to road safety, considering, in depth, these meanings and the cultures of driving that are shaped by them. In the Company of Cars examines the perspectives that young people have on cars, and explores the broader social and cultural meanings of the car, the potential it is supposed to fulfil, and the anticipated benefits it offers to young drivers. From focus-group research conducted in Australia, the book takes up the views of young people on a range of topics, from media to car use to gender performance. The author looks at the ways in which driving has been defined by articulations of the car that emphasize valued features of the car-driver, such as gender, youthfulness, status, age, power, raciness, sexiness, ruggedness and competitiveness. The book takes a global perspective on mobility, considering the impact of cars and road safety policy on quality of life, and the value and significance of other modes of travel, in a range of countries.

Fast Cars, Cool Rides

Fast Cars, Cool Rides PDF Author: Amy L. Best
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814799310
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Drawing on interviews with over 100 young men and women, and five years of research, the author explores the fast-paced world of kids and their cars. She reveals a world where cars have incredible significance for kids, as a means of transportation and thereby freedom to come and go, as status symbols and as a means to express their identities.

Boy Racer Culture

Boy Racer Culture PDF Author: Karen Lumsden
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113618435X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
On the public roads boy racers are a foreboding presence, viewed with suspicion and derision by the ‘respectable’ motorist. The problem of the young (male) driver is one which has plagued authorities and governments due to youths’ acclaimed propensity to engage in deviant and dangerous driving behaviours. Boy Racer Culture sheds light on the boy racer phenomenon through ethnographic research with the notorious ‘Bouley Basher’ culture in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland, and the moral panic on the part of outside groups including the local community, police, politicians and media. This book examines the creation of masculine and feminine identities in a traditionally male-dominated subculture through car-related rituals such as ‘modding’, subcultural media and events, and the quest for celebrity status via public performances. Boy Racer Culture challenges common misconceptions surrounding the boy racer, the ‘problematic’ young (male) motorist and the car modifier. It will be essential reading for an international audience including sociologists and criminologists, particularly those with an interest in youth culture, subcultures, moral panics, car culture, anti-social behaviour, and the governance and policing of the roads.

National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life

National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life PDF Author: Tim Edensor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100018367X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The Millennium Dome, Braveheart and Rolls Royce cars. How do cultural icons reproduce and transform a sense of national identity? How does national identity vary across time and space, how is it contested, and what has been the impact of globalization upon national identity and culture?This book examines how national identity is represented, performed, spatialized and materialized through popular culture and in everyday life. National identity is revealed to be inherent in the things we often take for granted - from landscapes and eating habits, to tourism, cinema and music. Our specific experience of car ownership and motoring can enhance a sense of belonging, whilst Hollywood blockbusters and national exhibitions provide contexts for the ongoing, and often contested, process of national identity formation. These and a wealth of other cultural forms and practices are explored, with examples drawn from Scotland, the UK as a whole, India and Mauritius. This book addresses the considerable neglect of popular cultures in recent studies of nationalism and contributes to debates on the relationship between ‘high' and ‘low' culture.

Autopia

Autopia PDF Author: Peter Wollen
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 9781861891327
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
The reach of the car today is almost universal, and its effect on landscapes, cityscapes, cultures indeed, on the very fabric of the modern world is profound. Cars have brought benefits to individuals in terms of mobility and expanded horizons, but the cost has been very high in terms of damage to the environment and the consumption of precious resources. Despite the growing belief that a Faustian price is now being paid for the freedom cars have bestowed on us, we are none the less manufacturing them in ever greater numbers. Autopia is the first book to explore the culture of the motor car in the widest possible sense. Featuring newly commissioned essays by writers, critics, historians, artists and film-makers, as well as reprinting key texts, it examines the effect of the car throughout the world, including the USA, Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, China, Cuba, India and South Africa. In this book the car is treated neither as a technological fetish object nor as an instrument of danger. Instead, it is examined as a hugely important determinant of 20th-century culture, neither wholly good nor an unmitigated disaster, and certainly endlessly fascinating. Contributors include Michael Bracewell, Ziauddin Sardar, Al Rees, Martin Pawley, Donald Richie and Peter Hamilton. Key texts by Marshall Berman, Jane Jacobs, Roland Barthes, Marc Auge and others."