Car Troubles: Critical Studies of Automobility and Auto-Mobility

by Jim Conley, Arlene Tigar McLaren (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780754677727
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/28/2009
Series:	Transport and Society Series
Edition description:	1
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jim Conley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada. Arlene Tigar McLaren is Professor Emerita in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Jim Conley, Arlene Tigar McLaren; Part 1 Cultures of Automobility; Chapter 1 T-Bucket Terrors to Respectable Rebels: Hot Rodders and Drag Racers in Vancouver BC, 1948–1965, Catharine Genovese; Chapter 2 Automobile Advertisements: The Magical and the Mundane, Jim Conley; Chapter 3 SUV Advertising: Constructing Identities and Practices, Fiona McLean; Chapter 4 Bad Impressions: The Will to Concrete and the Projectile Economy of Cities, Derek Simons; Part 2 Risk and Regulation; Chapter 5 The Safety Race: Transitions to the Fourth Age of the Automobile, David MacGregor; Chapter 6 Implementing Restraint: Automobile Safety and the US Debate over Technological and Social Fixes, Jameson M. Wetmore; Chapter 7 ‘Mind That Child’: Childhood, Traffic and Walking in Automobilized Space, Damian Collins, Catherine Bean, Robin Kearns; Part 3 Inevitable Automobility?; Chapter 8 The Politics of Mobility: De-essentializing Automobility and Contesting Urban Space, Jason Henderson; Chapter 9 The Chilean Way to Modernity: Private Roads, Fast Cars, Neoliberal Bodies, Ricardo Trumper, Patricia Tomic; Chapter 10 Driven to Drive: Cars and the Problem of ‘Compulsory Consumption’, Dennis Soron; Part 4 Beyond the Car; Chapter 11 Mobility as a Positional Good: Implications for Transport Policy and Planning, Todd Litman; Chapter 12 The Global Intensification of Motorization and Its Impacts on Urban Social Ecologies, George Martin; Chapter 13 Post-Car Mobilities, Kingsley Dennis, John Urry;

Editorial Reviews

'This collection of lively and engaging studies drives home to devastating effect and from different political, material, cultural and social directions, the fundamental contradiction of the car; that it destroys the very environment it makes accessible.' Tim Dant, University of Lancaster, UK 'Car Troubles shows brilliantly how far we have come since Wolfgang Sachs claimed that the "problem with the automobile is that the automobile is not a problem". It gives rich, diverse insights into our problematisation of the car, and into the complex politics of dealing with the problems cars cause.' Matthew Paterson, University of Ottawa, Canada

From the Publisher