Governing Vulnerability Through Feeling: Safety Education and Affective Infrastructure in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how contemporary road safety governance in Taiwan manages infrastructural risk through affective discipline rather than through substantial spatial redesign. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of state‐produced traffic safety education materials for children and adolescents produced between 2010 and 2023, it argues that safety education operates as an affective infrastructure: a pedagogical and visual apparatus that organises how danger is perceived, anticipated and endured in everyday mobility. The paper focuses on Taiwan as a context in which rapid motorisation, uneven pedestrian infrastructures and developmental priorities have produced persistent tensions between mobility and public safety. It identifies three mechanisms through which affective infrastructure operates. First, developmental mobility scripts intensify emotional responsibility as children gain autonomy, framing vigilance and self‐regulation as signs of maturity. Second, safety campaigns aestheticise care through harmonious imagery, mascots and participatory performances that displace attention from hazardous street conditions. Third, processes of responsibilisation relocate risk management into homes and schools, encouraging families and educators to absorb infrastructural insecurity through everyday emotional labour. Rather than replacing material infrastructure, these affective practices supplement uneven urban environments by training subjects to adapt to them. The paper contributes to geographical debates on affect, infrastructure and urban governance by showing how emotional discipline becomes a means of stabilising infrastructural inequality in everyday life.