Abstract

This article builds on Butlers’ concept of a ‘liveable life’ that pays attention to social power as constitutive of the psyche. I offer the concept of driving retirement melancholia to better understand why the future loss of a driving licence is often spoken of as living death. The article draws on qualitative fieldwork conducted in 2019 with drivers aged 65 years of age and over in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. I argue that retirement from driving is a form of social melancholia or blocked grief. The argument is that families, medical practitioners and transport authorities in car dominated western societies need to better understand the imagined loss of driving as constituting an ungrieveable and unliveable life.

摘要

本文建立在巴特勒的“宜居生活”概念之上，该概念关注社会权力作为心理的组成部分。我提出了驾驶退休忧郁症的概念，以更好地理解为什么未来失去驾驶执照通常被称为活死人。本文借鉴了 2019 年在澳大利亚新南威尔士州卧龙岗市对 65 岁及以上的司机进行的定性实地调查。我认为，从驾驶中退休是一种社交忧郁症或受阻的悲伤。论点是，在汽车占主导地位的西方社会中，家庭、医生和交通当局需要更好地理解想象中的失去驾驶是一种难以忍受和无法生活的生活。