ABSTRACT
Ethnographic research was carried out during 1997/1998 and focused upon women in their twenties, who saw themselves as both ordinary and typical, although perhaps with a little lower income and slightly less in the way of prospects than would be typical of an affluent country such as Norway. This chapter argues that the reason for which driving and drinking have come to occupy a similar niche within a sector of Norwegian society only makes sense when situated within the history of the forms. While rationality or predictability are commonly associated in car advertisements, it is perhaps unsurprising that this set of values is inverted and challenged through the same form of material culture. This is particularly so in view of the underlying associations of domesticity which the car embodies. If for women the key relationship in understanding the transgressive potential of the car is that with domesticity, then for men the equivalent would be the link to modernity.
