TITLE:
Mobile Meat Puppetry? Ruined Infrastructures, Embodiment and Agency in Driving
AUTHORS:
Andrew Dawson
KEYWORDS:
Automobility, Driving, Infrastructure, Ruins, Embodiment, Agency, State
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Anthropology,
Vol.8 No.1,
December
26,
2017
ABSTRACT: Contemporary automobilities research is replete with representation of a docile driver body or,as it is sometimes humorously described,a ‘mobile meat puppet’. This emerges, largely from research on automobilitiesin ‘Developed-World’ contexts. Contrastingly, in this article, through ethnography of driving experiences in post-Socialist and post-war Bosnia I explore material grounds for an agential driver. In particular, I consider how the enduring and decaying road infrastructure of Socialist Yugoslavia provides a basis for senses of empowerment in relation to new ethnic-nationalist states that are often experienced as oppressive and controlling.