Marketing car love in an age of fear: an anthropological approach to the emotional life of a world of automobiles

Abstract

The emotional life of car drivers and passengers in the United States is complex, with car marketing and a wider car system of infrastructure, regulation, risk, and profit shaping those affects. Based on anthropological research with drivers, buyers, marketers, and emergency personnel, this paper outlines a political economy of automobile affect in the United States. It focuses on the emotional encapsulation and individualism that car culture encourages, the remaking of the car interior as a highly emotional marketing and political space, and the fear of crime and crashes that car marketing both elides and banks on.

‘Sir, it was my right of way!’ Examining cultural change and the contested entitlements of automobility

“…India's economic deregulation, beginning in earnest in the 1990s, has seen car sales rise an average 14% a year between 2003 and 2010 (Lutz 2015, 596). Symbolic of modernity, aspiration, and individualism, the car industry targets an affluent middle class to realise consumerist desires for social and spatial mobility, comfort and convenience, incorporating elements of freedom and ideology, that is, the right to drive, in their discourse (do Carmo et al 2017;Schwanen 2017;Doughty & Murray 2016;Hansen 2016;Kent 2015;Lutz 2015;Nielsen & Wilhite 2015;Kent 2015;Lutz 2015;Tran & Schlyter 2010;Lyon & Chatterjee 2008;Freund & Martin 2007). According to Amrute (2015, 349), it is 'the mobile infrastructure of the private vehicle that underwrites economic liberalization in India', supported by Doughty and Murray's (2016) argument that mobility is part of the governing capacity of neo-liberalism, entrenched in its discourse of 'free movement'.…”

“…However, embedding automobility in everyday life has resulted in the replication of 'car troubles' (Freund & Martin 2007), such as chronic congestion, high levels of pollution, and increasing demands for associated infrastructure (see do Carmo et al 2017;Doughty & Murray 2016;Hansen 2016;Lutz 2015;Lyon & Chatterjee 2008;Freund & Martin 2007).…”

“…Tran & Schlyter 2010), non-motorized transport that used to be prevalent, for example, the bicycle, is now marginalized. iv Automobility may provide flexibility and convenience but can also restructure social networks, inhibit social cohesion through degrading communal spaces, and create barriers for public transport and pedestrians (Lutz 2015;Freund & Martin 2007). In Delhi, the unequal distribution and asymmetrical relationships of automobility in a city that is already segregated at many levels, exacerbates the 'stratifying force' of an individual's capacity to move themselves or others (Do Carmo et al (2017, 31;Kwan & Schwanen 2016), actively marginalising those who cannot or do not wish to drive (Bagheri 2017;Binnie et al 2007;Adey 2006).…”

Safe and sound: listening to Guns N’ Roses in the car

“…Ford’s investment into car stereo systems reportedly far exceeds any of its previous spends (Sony 2015; Aswad 2018). In public remarks, Ford noted the congruence of the new audio kit with its overall safety and security systems (Ford Media Centre 2020; see also Lutz 2015). The question arises: what makes sound so suitable for the assurance of road safety?…”

Hacia la trans-nación yaqui :intercambio, fronteras e identidades

“…Las calles no son incorporadas a los espacios íntimos y, por ende, son inseguras, porque el miedo a la otredad y la retirada del contacto con los otros son notorios. En otras palabras, los otros, que se encuentran en las calles, son "peligrosos" (Lutz, 2015). La construcción de los espacios al estilo estadounidense penetra en la vida de la reserva.…”