With Augé at the Pumps

: Supermodernity and the archaeology of the British filling station 1920-2020

Abstract

Integral to the rise of the motor car as a reliable and flexible form of transport has been easy access to fuel, bringing the infrastructure of automobility into the daily experience of millions and embedding the petroleum economy in the landscape. Recent archaeological and anthropological thought has considered the role of automobility in twentieth and twenty-first century societies and its contribution to a human-driven material impact on the planet (the ‘Anthropocene’). Drawing on a range of methodologies and perspectives, this research builds on that work, considering how the filling station has been both created for and created the oil-dependent everyday world. Using the ideas put forward by Marc Augé in ‘Non-Places: An introduction to supermodernity’ and subsequent critiques of those ideas, it makes an original contribution to contemporary archaeology by considering how the materiality and experience of the filling station has moved from being a phenomenon of modernity to one of supermodernity. It investigates and reflects on sites of refuelling as the performance spaces of technological and social change in twentieth century Britain.
A phenomenological lens is used to investigate the embodied encounter of these sites. In examining the spatial impact of the filling station in Dorset’s twentieth and twenty-first century landscape and initiating a typology of sites, this study makes a new and original contribution to understanding the late modern and contemporary British landscape, and how social and technological change have altered the way individuals and groups in society experience and interact with landscapes. The study examines how the filling station has revealed itself within cultural and political activity, becoming embedded in the quotidian. The extent to which the filling station is becoming a phenomenon of the twentieth century is evaluated. The nature of the filling station as a heritage artefact is considered in the light of the concerns of contemporary archaeology and current thinking on the role of nostalgia in British society.

Date of Award	7 Oct 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Winchester
Supervisor	Niall Finneran (Supervisor) & Lisa Bernasek (Supervisor)