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Space and Sensibility Tanja Joelsson Space and Sensibility Young Men’s Risk-Taking with Motor Vehicles Linköping Studies in Arts and Science No. 574 Linköping University, Department of Thematic Studies Linköping 2013 Linköping Studies in Arts and Science No. 574 At the Faculty of Arts and Science at Linköping University, research and doctoral studies are carried out within Broad proBlem areas. Research is organized in interdisciplinary research environments and doctoral studies mainly in graduate schools. Jointly, they puBlish the se- ries Linköping Studies in Arts and Science. This thesis comes from The Unit of Gender Stud- ies at the Department of Thematic Studies. DistriButed By: Department of Thematic Studies Linköping University 581 83 Linköping Tanja Joelsson Space and SensiBility Young men’s risk-taking with motor vehicles Upplaga 1:1 ISBN 978-91-7519-677-0 ISSN 0282-9800 © Tanja Joelsson The Department of Thematic Studies 2013 Printed By LiU-Tryck, Linköping 2013 Cover design By Lillian Malander and Per Lagman Cover photography By Anna Grossman/Photodisc/Getty Images To Kira and Olof; and to Sonja, Frank and Hans Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 7 Preface ...................................................................................................................................... 11 Risk-taking young men ...................................................................................................... 15 Research aims, guiding questions and structure of the thesis ....................... 18 Young people’s everyday lives ..................................................................................... 23 Everyday life, personhood and social practices ................................................... 23 The place of culture(s) .................................................................................................. 26 The cultural construction of age ................................................................................. 33 Hegemonic notions of youthfulness and youth as a life phase ....................... 34 Partial conceptions of youth ....................................................................................... 39 Towards a critical approach to risk ........................................................................... 41 Risk as a social, cultural and spatial phenomenon ............................................ 42 Risk-taking as a social and spatial practice ......................................................... 44 Risk-taking as violation ................................................................................................ 49 Concluding remarks ......................................................................................................... 52 Means of movement ........................................................................................................... 55 The road to a field .............................................................................................................. 55 An adult among teens ...................................................................................................... 59 A theoretically informed and embodied ethnographic product(ion) ......... 66 A view from somewhere ............................................................................................... 68 Reflexive ethics in the making ..................................................................................... 73 The analytical process ..................................................................................................... 78 Locating the greasers ........................................................................................................ 83 Lillby community ............................................................................................................... 84 Regional politics .............................................................................................................. 86 The greasers in contemporary youth culture ....................................................... 89 The urban bias and spatial stigmatization ........................................................... 90 The white rural ................................................................................................................ 93 Greaser space ...................................................................................................................... 98 The car park and the youth centre ........................................................................... 99 Seasonal changes, places and vehicle use ............................................................ 106 The unruly localized ..................................................................................................... 109 Summary and concluding remarks .......................................................................... 111 The greaser culture .......................................................................................................... 113 The social geography of the young people of Lillby ......................................... 114 Being visible – being someone .................................................................................. 115 Performing and practising the greaser .................................................................. 121 Social and physical skills ............................................................................................ 125 Playing (out) social hierarchies .............................................................................. 129 Troubled belonging? ...................................................................................................... 132 Girls in the boys’ room ................................................................................................. 134 Friends with cars ........................................................................................................... 137 Summary and concluding remarks .......................................................................... 141 Breaking bored .................................................................................................................... 143 Preconceived boredom? ............................................................................................... 144 Spatial boredom ............................................................................................................ 147 Boring people ................................................................................................................. 152 Creating fun, becoming fun ......................................................................................... 154 Fun: enjoyment, pleasure, thrills and excitement ............................................. 154 Party hard ........................................................................................................................ 161 Spatial boredom and conceptions of place and gender .................................. 164 Summary and concluding remarks .......................................................................... 166 Managing risk ........................................................................................................................ 169 A clarification of the concept of control ............................................................... 170 Stepping on it – controlling the vehicle .................................................................. 171 Policing social borders .................................................................................................. 174 Performing distinction ................................................................................................ 175 Talking risk ......................................................................................................................... 181 Controlling emotions and the risk-taking narrative ....................................... 182 Careless young men and caring young women? ................................................ 188 Summary and concluding remarks .......................................................................... 195 Placeness, risk-taking and violations ...................................................................... 199 Placeness and the politics of stability ..................................................................... 200 Place, personhood and belonging ........................................................................... 201 Spatial boredom and the making of fun ............................................................... 204 Placeness .......................................................................................................................... 205 A situated concept of risk-taking .............................................................................. 209 Becoming a careless young man ............................................................................. 210 Risk-taking as violations ............................................................................................ 211 Challenges for car hegemony – challenging autonormativity ...................... 214 Motor vehicle dependency in the automobility regime .................................. 214 A violent regime ............................................................................................................. 217 Where to from here?
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