Chapter 4: Necroautomobility and the Colonial Chase in the Cultural Imagination

The police chase is intwined in the colonial violence against First Nations peoples. This occurs, on one end of the spectrum, through routine police patrols in vehicles involving racialised targeting of First Nations drivers for stops and apprehensions. On the other end, police dangerously chase and ram First Nations peoples to death. Police, prison and private security automobility is also weaponed to detain First Nations people in the back of vehicles from where their lives are taken and evidence concealed (see Campbell & Opie, 2021). In these instances, the carceral motor vehicle is used as a technique of ‘necropower’ to subjugate dispossessed life to the power of death (Mbembé & Meintjes, 2003, p. 13). We refer to the necropower of the police motor vehicle as ‘necroautomobility’: the use of the car to control and ultimately take the life of colonised First Nations peoples.