For a long time, social and cultural consequences of the extension of the automobile were not priorized as an object of study by social sciences. Recently, with the consolidation of what’s usually known as mobilities studies, a series of works about the culture of the automobile are starting to appear. A good entry on the subjec is the number of Theory, Culture and Society dedicated to the topic of automobilities.

Why is the automobile a central part of modern mobilities? First, its importance is such that distinct orders of production organization, such as fordism and toyotism, take its name from cars factories. In these places, a particular form of production, linked to the production line and flexible production, started to be defined and is showing in a good part of literature on economics and innovation.

Second, the massive introduction of the automobile estimulated and gave sense to a space reformulation of the city and the appearing of suburbs and commercial centers, far away from the most populate urban centers. It remodeled our everyday life to the point that it is impossible to think of how our society would be without its presence. But, at the same time, the culture of the automobile establishes a series of rules on its own, that tend to be accepted as natural by other sectors of the society. For instance, the tolerance in respect to the development of cars that can reach very high speeds, where the odds of a fatal accident -as much for the driver as for eventual pedestrian- are really high.

On the other side, even when the culture of the automobile can be seen at this extent as a global fenomenum, it’s pretty obvious for any traveler that the forms of managing and ordering the traffic differ a lot in different countries. Even the place of the car in our quotidian life is distinct in each society. It’s evident its huge weight on the estructure of the movement of the american society. The idea of the drive-thru, the auto Mac and other types of business that reformulate its practices of customer care to adequate the use of the automobile, is putting on the spotlight this importance. The vast popularity of the automobile as a means of locomotion ends up having an impact on the american society in another way: its stimulation to sedentarism and the growth of the number of obese people.

To focalize the culture of the automobile as an object of study for social sciences also implies to place it in a particular net, in which shopping centers, suburban spaces, hotels and lodges, and tourist locations also participate.

Bibliography

Featherstone, Mike (2004) “Automobilities: an introduction� en Theory, Culture and Society, vol. 21 num. 4/5.