ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we argue for an anthropology of transport affect as a serious scholarly undertaking within mobility and transport studies. This implies how people feel and act as a consequence of aroused emotions experienced within an affective economy such as the mobility and transport system. From an anthropology of transport affect perspective, we reflect upon historical as well as contemporary cases related to the transport system more generally and future smart mobilities in particular. In the first part of the chapter we map the theoretical background and in the second part we use historical as well as contemporary cases to think through the place of emotions, gender, and power in transport and mobility systems, including how future smart mobilities may challenge what Landström calls ‘a gendered economy of pleasure’, that to large extent is associated with the current dominant mobility paradigm. Core values in such a gendered economy of pleasure are escapism, risk taking, masculine prowess, and technical dexterity.
