VEHICLES

Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign&mdash,for example, a cattle car&mdash,and its referent, the Holocaust. These &ldquo,sign-vehicles&rdquo, serve as modes of semiotic transportation through conceptual space. Likewise, on-the-ground vehicles can be rich metaphors for the moral imagination. Following on this insight, ,Vehicles ,presents a collection of ethnographic essays on the metaphoric significance of vehicles in different cultures. Analyses include canoes in Papua New Guinea, pedestrians and airplanes in North America, lowriders among Mexican-Americans, and cars in contemporary China, Japan, and Eastern Europe, as well as among African-Americans in the South. Vehicles not only &ldquo,carry people around,&rdquo, but also &ldquo,carry&rdquo, how they are understood in relation to the dynamics of culture, politics and history._,