This isn'´t functioning!
Challenging paradigms of functional efficiency in the context of automobile arrangements
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/irtp.v3i1.167396Keywords:
affective milieu, technology, imperial mode of living, automobile arrangement, car dependenceAbstract
Mobility patterns play a crucial role in the context of contemporary eco-crises. Within the context of critical psychologies of the everyday this paper addresses the role that automobile arrangements play in cementing imperial modes of living in the Global north. Departing from conceptual discussions as well as with regard to empirical data from a recent research project, we discuss how appeals to functional efficiency operate in legitimizing the status quo of car-dependent lifestyles. We draw from the work of Gilbert Simondon to develop a conceptual framework that enables re-problematizing self-enclosed patterns of functioning. An understanding of technical objects as relational becoming that require mediation by agents within techno-geographical milieus extending beyond anthropocentric utilities and concerns is developed and exemplified with reference to empirical findings.
References
Adams, M. (2014). Approaching nature, ‘sustainability’ and ecological crises from a critical social psychological perspective. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8(6), 251–262. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12104
Afshar, Y. (2024). Psycho-soziale Aspekte der Automobilität heute [Psycho-social aspects of mobility today]. In Arbeitskreis Kritische Umweltpsychologie der Initiative Psychologie im Umweltschutz e.V. & Psychologists/Psychotherapists for Future e.V. [Working group Critical environmental psychology of the initiative psychology in environment protection & Psychologists/Psychotherapists for future] (Eds.), Kritische Umweltpsychologie: Krisen verstehen, Handlungsfähigkeit entwickeln [Critical environmental psychology: Understanding crises, developing agency] (pp. 291–311). Psychosozial-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.30820/9783837962574-291
Alestig, M., Dabi, N., Jeurkar, A., & Maitland, A. (2024). Carbon inequality kills: Why curbing the excessive emissions of an elite few can create a sustainable planet for all (Executive summary). Oxfam. https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621656/bp-carbon-inequality-kills-281024-summ-en.pdf
Brand, U., & Wissen, M. (2012) Global environmental politics and the imperial mode of living: Articulations of state–capital relations in the multiple crisis. Globalizations, 9(4), 547–560. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2012.699928
Carbon Majors (2024). The carbon majors database: Launch report (Executive Summary). Carbon Majors Database. https://carbonmajors.org/briefing/The-Carbon-Majors-Database-26913
Chancel, L., Bothe, P., & Voituriez, T. (2023). Climate inequality report 2023 (Study 2023/1). World Inequality Lab. https://wid.world/www-site/uploads/2023/01/CBV2023-ClimateInequalityReport1.pdf
Chimirri, A. N. & Schraube, E. (2019). Rethinking psychology of technology for future society: Exploring subjectivity from within more-than-human everyday life. In K. O’Doherty, L. Osbeck, E. Schraube & J. Yen (Eds.), Psychological Studies of Science and Technology (pp. 49–76). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25308-0_3
Daggett, C. (2018). Petro-masculinity: Fossil fuels and authoritarian desire. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 47(1), 25–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829818775817
EEA (2022). Transport and environment report 2021: Decarbonising road transport — the role of vehicles, fuels and transport demand. Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2800/68902
Ergas, C., McKinney, L., & Bell, S.E. (2021). Intersectionality and the environment. In B. Schaefer Caniglia, A. Jorgenson, S. A. Malin, L. Peek, D. N. Pellow, & X. Huang (Eds.), Handbook of environmental sociology (pp. 15–34). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77712-8_2
Goessling, S. (2017). The psychology of the car: Automobile admiration, attachment, and addiction. Elsevier.
Gruen, L. (2015). Entangled empathy: An alternative ethic for our relationships with animals. Lantern Books.
Hametner, K., Wrbouschek, M., & von Zieglauer, F. (2025). Zum Zusammenspiel von Mobilitätspraktiken und (nicht-)nachhaltigen Normsetzungen [On the interplay between mobility practices and (non-) sustainable normativity]. Psychologie und Gesellschaftskritik [Psychology and Critique of Society], 49(1), 33–63. https://doi.org/10.2440/007-0034
Haraway, D. J. (1991). Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203873106
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Jeekel, H. (2016). The car-dependent society: A European perspective. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315614311
Jeekel, H. (2014). Social exclusion, vulnerable groups and driving forces: Towards a social research based policy on car mobility. Case Studies on Transport Policy, 2(2), 96–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cstp.2014.06.005
Jörg, K. (2020). Autoregime. In K. Jörg (Ed.), Backlash: Essays zur Resilienz der Moderne [Backlash: Essays regarding the resilience of modernity] (pp. 75–103). Textem.
Jörg, K. (2024). Das Auto und die ökologische Katastrophe: Utopische Auswege aus der autodestruktiven Vernunft [The car and the ecological catastrophe: Utopian escapes from autodestructive reason]. transcript.
Kunze, C. (2022). Deutschland als Autobahn: Eine Kulturgeschichte von Männlichkeit, Moderne und Nationalismus [Germany as Autobahn: A cultural history of masculinity, modernity and nationlism]. transcript. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839459430
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199256044.001.0001
Lindberg, S. (2017). Technologies of the end of the world. In M. Sá Cavalcante Schuback & S. Lindberg (Eds.), The end of the world: Contemporary philosophy and art (pp. 3-20). Rowman & Littlefield.
Lindberg, S. (2019). Being with technique — Technique as being‑with: The technological communities of Gilbert Simondon. Continental Philosophy Review, 52, 299–310. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-019-09466-9
Mattioli, G., Roberts, C., Steinberger, J. K., & Brown, A. (2020). The political economy of car dependence: A systems of provision approach. Energy Research & Social Science, 66, Article 101486. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101486
Maynard, D. C., Ferdman, B. M., & Holmes, T. R. (2010). Mobility and inclusion. In S. C. Carr (Ed.), The psychology of global mobility (pp. 211–233). Springer Science + Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6208-9_11
Niederhauser, J. (2023). Petromaskuline Gefühlswelten: Was der Kulturkampf ums Auto mit Geschlecht zu tun hat [Petromasculine worlds of feeling: What culture clash about the car has to do with gender]. Gesellschaftsanalyse und linke, 2, 94–99.
Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2017). Matters of care: Speculative ethics in more than human worlds. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636778.2019.1586527
Richardson, K., Steffen, W., Lucht, W., Bendtsen, J., Cornell, S. E., Donges, J. F., Drüke, M., Fetzer, I., Bala, G., von Bloh, W., Feulner, G., Fiedler, S., Gerten, D., Gleeson, T., Hofmann, M., Huiskamp, W., Kummu, M., Mohan, C., Nogués-Bravo, D., Petri, et al. (2023). Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries. Science Advances, 9(37), Article eadh2458. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458
Sachs, W. (1992). For love of the automobile. Looking back into the history of our desires. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520354739
Vara Sánchez, C. (2025). Unfulfilled habits: On the affective consequences of turning down affordances for social interaction. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 24, 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-024-09988-5
Schaupp, S. (2024). Stoffwechselpolitik: Arbeit, Natur und die Zukunft des Planeten. [Metabolic politics: Work, nature and the future of the planet.] Suhrkamp.
Schraube, E., & Højholt, C. (Eds.). (2016). Psychology and the conduct of everyday life. Routledge.
Schütze, P. (2021). From affective arrangements to affective milieus. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 611827. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.611827
Schütze, P., Jörg, K., von Maur, I., & Slaby, J. (2022). Affect as disruption: Affective experimentation, automobility, and the ecological crisis. In B. Timm Knudsen, M. Krogh & C. Stage (Eds.), Methodologies of affective experimentation (pp. 27–45). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96272-2_2
Shaw, D. B. (2020). Technonature/Culture. In D. B. Shaw (Ed.), Technoculture: The key concepts (pp. 63–80). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003086802
Simondon, G. (2017). On the mode of existence of technical objects. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.3366/dls.2011.0029
Slaby, J. (2019). Affective arrangements. In J. Slaby & C. von Scheve (Eds.), Affective societies: Key concepts (pp. 109–118). Palgrave.
Slaby, J. (2023). Structural apathy, affective injustice, and the ecological crisis. Philosophical Topics, 51(1), 63–83.
Slaby, J. (2024). Habits of affluence: Unfeeling, enactivism and the ecological crisis of capitalism. Mind & Society, 24, 165–186. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-024-00309-6.
Spurrett, D. (2024). On hostile and oppressive affective technologies. Topoi, 43, 821-832. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-023-09962-x.
Statistik Austria (2019). Umweltgerechtigkeit: Sozioökonomische Unterschiede bei von Umwelteinflüssen Betroffenen und im Umweltverhalten. [Environmental justice: Socio-economic differences regarding environmental influence on affected individuals and regarding environmental behaviour]. Statistik Austria. https://www.statistik.at/fileadmin/publications/Umweltgerechtigkeit_-_Soziooekonomische_Unterschiede_bei_von_Umwelteinfluessen_Betroffenen_und_im_Umweltverhalten__Ergebnisse_des_Mikrozensus_01.pdf
Stenner, P. (2024). What is called “process thought”: A transdisciplinary process ontology for psychosocial studies. In S. Frosh, M. Vyrgioti, & J. Walsh. The Palgrave handbook of psychosocial studies (pp. 239-266). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30366-1_43
Uzzell, D., & Räthzel, N. (2012). Mending the breach between labour and nature: A case for environmental labour studies. In N. Räthzel & D. Uzzell (Eds.), Trade unions in the green economy: Working for the environment (pp. 1–12). Routledge
Wrbouschek, M., & Slunecko, T. (2021). Moods in transition: Theorizing the affective dynamic constitution of situatedness. New Ideas in Psychology, 62, Article 100857u. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2021.100857
Zhang, J., Kuwano, M., Chikaraishi, M., & Seya, H. (2017). The car-dependent life. In J. Zhang (Ed.), Life-Oriented Behavioral Research for Urban Policy (pp. 97–122). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56472-0_4
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Markus Wrbouschek, Katharina Hametner
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
IRTP operates based on a non-exclusive publishing agreement, according to which the journal retains the right of first publication, but authors are free to subsequently publish their work. The copyright of all work rests with the author(s).
All content published in IRTP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This license allows authors and readers to share and adapt content for non-commercial purposes, provided that they abide by the following terms:
- Give credit to the original author(s)/creator(s) and attribution parties (i.e., IRTP);
- Provide a link to the original source, to the extent practicable;
- Include the copyright notice and/or indicate the corresponding Creative Commons license;
- Indicate what, if any, adaptations were made to the original; and
- Share adapted content under the same license as the original.
Authors are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the various Creative Commons licenses. Readers are advised to consult the licensing information embedded in each published work to ensure that they are familiar with the terms of use that apply.
