Driving the Social
Joanna Latimer, Rolland Munro · The Sociological Review · 2006
In this article, the authors discuss ways in which the experience of automobile driving comes to 'inhabit' other forms of relationships, including thought and conversation. The authors first argue for an approach to the automobile that uses a way of understanding the car as a cultural system of enhancement, rather than just accept in total Urry's 'conquering hybrid of automobility.' They draw attention to the car as system, thus opposing references to the car as culture. They propose both the partiality of any one cultural system of enhancement and its complicity with many of the other systems that are rampant in society today. They call for further research that would focus on the human engrossment with these systems, including the car, the house, the computer, and the mobile telephone, rather than on the systems themselves.