Transport: Disciplining the Body that Travels

In this article, the author considers the proliferation of automobile usage within a broader study of how urban populations have been encouraged to think about and conduct their journeys. The author examines the proliferation of automobile usage in the Australian city of Adelaide, locating the motor car within a broader historical investigation of the objectification of the spaces, bodies, and conduct of urban travel. The author focuses on the period through the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when efficient movement was popularized as the principle by which to guide the arrangement of street space and the ordering of urban traffic. The author concludes that the logic of the economic journal provided the basis for designating street space for a new order of mobility. The second part of the article focuses on the objectification of the traveling body and the human capacities necessary to undertake fast, orderly movement.