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Paper short abstract

Drawing from post-ANT literature and through following online discourses and inscribed infrastructure this paper aim to uncover the enacted realities of cars in the city. The hostility to and from the car drives city development but why does everyone hate, or love, the mundane parking spot?

Paper long abstract

“Uppsala is no longer a city for everyone!!!!” begins a comment on Upsala Nya Tidning's (UNT) social media page. It can be found underneath an opinion piece which argued that it should “cost (a lot)” to park on the city streets. UNT is the main newspaper in the Uppsala region and readers often engage with comments, perhaps especially when it comes to the question of cars and their parking space. Whether there should be more or less cars and parking, more or less roads, etc. The questions in the debate comes down to hostile technologies, but who (or what) is it that is hostile to whom?

With a basis in post-ANT this article aims to uncover and explore the various cars, parking spots, roads and drivers that can be found throughout the city and online. Crucially, the ontonorms prescribing different ways of being with a car presents a difficult task for local politics, a task which might not be solvable unless the underlying ontologies that politicians are engaging with are recognised. Because if the ontological status of the car makes it part of what it is to live a good life, then raising the price of street parking is not just an administrative decision, it is societal ostracizing. In the words of the same comment which we started with above “Shame on you for making the city so inaccessible, but your time will come when you will feel what it’s like to feel outside of society!!!!”