Off Road: Four-Wheel Drive and the Sense of Place

Abstract

In this paper I argue that the popularity of four-wheel drive vehicles has important consequences for contemporary notions of place and should he considered in the context of the upsurge in high-tech, especially communication, systems. Four-wheel drive culture encompasses both a literal mobility and a fantasy relationship between urban or suburban regions and those of the great outdoors, especially wilderness. By using the Australian experience as a case study I show that four-wheel drive culture plays a crucial part in the construction of what could be called the deep outback and the deep suburbs. It thereby plays a significant role in a renegotiation of the iconography of national identity.