ABSTRACT
In line with the book’s philosophy of viewing the particular as the universal, the general character of the traffic in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam, is introduced through the experience of a Vietnamese motorbike rider, who, as part of her everyday commute, engages with this complex and potentially dangerous phenomenon. Following Tim Edensor, it is suggested that the character of the city emerges via the unique aesthetic nature of the mobilities that flow through it. Drawing on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, the chapter then raises the fundamental question of how enduring characteristics formed in the past continue as fundamental processes of creative evolution, affecting contemporary events in HCMC traffic. The chapter highlights the profound influence of affect and suggests that infrastructures form through a kind of kinetic materialism and kinetic automatism, in which HCMC traffic users are continually influenced by kinetic forces, atmospheres, and affective temporalities and spatialities.
