Picturing the road : automobility in selected South African postcards

dc.contributor.authorVan Eeden, Jeanne
dc.contributor.emailjeanne.vaneeden@up.ac.zaen_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-04-04T08:05:36Z
dc.date.available2013-05-30T00:20:04Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.description.abstractThis article considers two cultural products that appeared almost simultaneously at the end of the 19th century in South Africa – the motorcar and the picture postcard – in terms of their joint avowal of technological progress and modernity. Both postcards and the motorcar promoted new modes of communication and sociality, and became effective vehicles of mythic discourse. In order to explore this notion, this article takes as point of departure a purposive sample of 11 South African postcards between about the 1920s and the 1940s, wherein the roadscape is the primary topic. It is shown that from the earliest years, cars were associated with leisure and pleasure in South Africa and were consequently channels through which propositions about entitlement, conspicuous leisure, class, nationhood, gender roles, capitalism, technology, modernity, tourism and mobility were expressed. In the discussion of the postcards, attention is given to the trope of the empty land, the romance of the open road, cars as symbols of freedom, and the lure of mobility, both social and geographical. The article concludes that the myths of mobility and freedom were embodied by white consumers and that black people’s experience of automobility was severely constrained by the political realities of South Africa.en_US
dc.description.librarianhj2013en_US
dc.description.librariangv2013
dc.description.urihttp://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcsa20en_US
dc.identifier.citationJeanne van Eeden (2012): Picturing the road: Automobility in selected South African postcards, Communicatio: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research, 38:1, 84-102en_US
dc.identifier.issn0250-0167 (print)
dc.identifier.issn1753-5379 (online)
dc.identifier.other10.1080/02500167.2011.627567
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/21237
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherRoutledgeen_US
dc.rights© Unisa Press and Taylor & Francis. This is an electronic version of an article published in Communicatio, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 84-102, 2012. Communicatio is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcsa20.en_US
dc.subjectAutomobilityen_US
dc.subjectCar cultureen_US
dc.subjectLeisureen_US
dc.subject.lcshTourism -- South Africaen
dc.subject.lcshPostcards -- South Africaen
dc.subject.lcshPostcards -- History -- Themes,motivesen
dc.subject.lcshAutomobile travel -- South Africaen
dc.titlePicturing the road : automobility in selected South African postcardsen_US
dc.typePostprint Articleen_US

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