The Car as Avatar in Australian Social Security Decisions

This paper draws upon automobile semiotics and legal semiotics to argue that the car in Australian social security decisions becomes an avatar for the applicant that is then decoded into meaning streams concerning deservingness and prudence. It is suggested that this has two implications. The first it highlights the techniques where by a technical object (the car) and the ‘life’ of the applicant became bridged in law; and through that bridging life becomes ‘formatted.’ The second highlights the extent of automobile culture. The car has meaning beyond the highways and parking lots. The paper shows how these meanings have become integrated into processes of biopolitical governance.