Multiautoculturalism: reconceptualising conflict on the roads

Dawson, Andrew, Day, Jennifer and Ashmore, David (2020) Multiautoculturalism: reconceptualising conflict on the roads. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 21 (3), 205-228. (doi:10.1080/14442213.2020.1754894).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Based empirically on a netnography of public forums related to news articles about car–bike conflicts and accidents on Melbourne’s roads, this article takes classic anthropological and sociological theory on ethnicity and mobility, respectively, into the new territory of explaining the mutual perceptions of drivers and cyclists. Furthermore, moving from ethnicity, we invoke multiculturalism in its senses as a descriptor for ethnic pluralism, a discourse of marginalisation, and a basis for a politics of recognition. Through this we argue for reconceptualisation of the road as ‘multiautocultural’—a space comprised of a plurality of modally contrived and mutually othering vehicular identities and cultures that, like ethnicities in multicultural societies, ought to be appreciated as such in law, education and road design if, as we argue, amelioration of conflict on the roads is to be mitigated.

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