Thinking with Bevereley Skeggs - Stockholms universitet

driving. When driving a car, emotions are brought into play,engaging gendered subjects and objects, through a process ofco-construction.The four examples I have provisionally analysed aboveindicate links between car driving, technology, masculinity andemotions of shame, honour, humiliation and respect in severalways. Gendered shame seems to form ambivalent relations in thediscursive negotiations on how to perform masculinity in traffic.Discourses on how to successfully perform masculinity in thearea of traffic draws on shame, both as an experience of a lackof masculinity and as a strategy in male rivalry. But as shamespreads as part of the ‘affective economies’ of traffic – if to provemasculinity through dangerous driving involves risking andnegotiating shame in the pursuit of status – gendered shame mayboth reproduce and reduce dangerous driving, both strengtheningand weakening homosocial bonds between men.ReferencesAhmed, Sara (2004), The Cultural Politics of Emotion (Edinburgh: EdinburghUniversity Press).Dant, Tim (2004), ‘The Driver-Car’, in Mike Featherstone, Nigel Thrift & JohnUrry (eds.), Automobilities (London: Sage). Special Issue of Theory, Cultureand Society http://tcs.ntu.ac.uk/tcs/issues/21(4-5).htmEldh, Christer (2001), “Remember, all racing at own risk!” – föreställningarom risk och teknik i konstruktionen av maskulinitet, in: Fronesis, 8, nr 4,(Stockholm).Gilroy, Paul (2001), ‘Driving While Black’, in Daniel Miller (ed.), Car Cultures(Oxford/New York: Berg).Hearn, Jeff (2007), ‘Transnationalizations of Emotions’, in Stephen Fineman(ed.), The Emotional Organization: Passions and Power (Oxford: BlackwellPublishing).Michael, Mike (2000), Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature: FromSociety to Heterogeneity (London: Routledge).18