Making-home in the Flow: Materiality, Emotion and Power in the Home-making Practices of Truckers

Wang Yanlong, Wang Shilei

Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2024, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (5) : 109-132.

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Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2024, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (5) : 109-132.
Research Articles

Making-home in the Flow: Materiality, Emotion and Power in the Home-making Practices of Truckers

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Abstract

The current acceleration of social mobility and modernization in China has contributed to people's nostalgia. This article explores how truckers make home and alleviate nostalgia in mobile labor. The study used in-depth interviews and field observation to analyse truckers' home-making practices along three dimensions: materiality, emotion and power. In the material dimension, the truckers turn the cab into home enclave through food, “spirits”, and various kinds of meaningful objects; in the emotional dimension, the truckers are reunited with their family by forming a simultaneous space convention, and meet the landscape imagery of the home through image provided by intelligent media; in the power dimension, the truckers construct power zones through representation outside the family and internally by sharing power and responsibility with their trucker's wife.While providing fresh cases of home-making practices research, the study also pays attention to the personal life of laborers under the background of hot platform research, and calls for seeing their emotional needs and dynamics as “human beings” at the current time when the idea of “exploitation-resistance” is popular.

Key words

home / rural / smart media / everyday practices / mobile labor

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Wang Yanlong , Wang Shilei. Making-home in the Flow: Materiality, Emotion and Power in the Home-making Practices of Truckers[J]. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication. 2024, 46(5): 109-132

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Footnotes

1. “乡愁”当前在西方语境中被翻译为“nostalgia”,更多地强调的是一种对家乡、往事的怀念,其精确地触及到一种时间性的产物。然而在中国语境下,其指“深切思念家乡的忧伤的心情”(来自商务印书馆2023年《现代汉语词典 第七版》第1426页,不同版本的词典表述不同,但含义一致),并没有强调时间方面的特性。而是隐含了主体性、空间性以及社会性三个特征,这更多地与“家园感”类似,只是中国语境下的“乡愁”比“家园感”多了一些悲观的意味。因此,研究在行文中更多地使用“家园感”或“家园”进行表述,当需要强调悲观情绪时,则用“乡愁”指代。且需要注意的是,本文的家庭主要指卡车司机、卡嫂及其未婚子女组成的核心家庭,而非更大范围的主干家庭或联合家庭。

2. 大部分卡车司机认为这些都是在摆拍,因驾驶室空间有限,携带的食物都是耐放的,且出门在外追求的就是一个“方便”,很少有这样大张旗鼓做饭的。但他们同时也认为,部分司机网红就是以摆拍为生,做得越复杂越吸引眼球,因此这种行为也就不稀奇了。

3. 汽车搭电也叫借电,其原理是将另外一台车辆电池所储存的电量通过外接设备,连接到电量耗尽的车辆上,当车辆正常启动后即可解除外接设备,让汽车通过搭电恢复电池的电量。

Funding

National Social Science Foundation of China(19BXW090)
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