ABSTRACT
The metaphor of the car as a home has a long anecdotal history in cultural theory. The root of this is discerned in the automobile as metaphor for the dominant western cultural values of individualism and private property which is coupled to the romantic imagery embodied in travel as signifying individual freedom. This chapter suggests that the historical turning point between ‘dwelling on the road’ and ‘dwelling in the car’ can be located in a very specific technological development: the placing of a radio within the automobile. The car is a space of performance and communication where drivers report being in dialogue with the radio or singing in one’s auditized/privatized space. Drivers spend an increasing amount of their daily lives in automobiles, often involved in mundane and repetitive journeys. Automobiles appear to operate as symbolic ‘sanctuaries’ in which drivers operationalize strategies of ‘centredness’. This sanctuary represents a physical zone of ‘immunity’ between the driver and the world or space beyond.
