Vehicles: Cars, Canoes, and Other Metaphors of Moral Imagination

Vehicles: Cars, Canoes, and Other Metaphors of Moral Imagination
ISBN-10
178238376X
ISBN-13
9781782383765
Series
Vehicles
Category
Social Science
Pages
224
Language
English
Published
2014-08-01
Publisher
Berghahn Books
Authors
Richard Handler, David Lipset

Description

Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign—for example, a cattle car—and its referent, the Holocaust. These “sign-vehicles” serve as modes of semiotic transportation through conceptual space. Likewise, on-the-ground vehicles can be rich metaphors for the moral imagination. Following on this insight, Vehicles presents a collection of ethnographic essays on the metaphoric significance of vehicles in different cultures. Analyses include canoes in Papua New Guinea, pedestrians and airplanes in North America, lowriders among Mexican-Americans, and cars in contemporary China, Japan, and Eastern Europe, as well as among African-Americans in the South. Vehicles not only “carry people around,” but also “carry” how they are understood in relation to the dynamics of culture, politics and history.

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