Journal article
Automation interrupted: How autonomous vehicle accidents transform the material politics of automation
D Bissell
Political Geography | ELSEVIER SCI LTD | Published : 2018
Abstract
This paper develops our geographical understanding of the material politics of automation. Through the empirical site of the autonomous vehicle, the paper argues that dominant understandings of the politics of contemporary automation draw on a restricted understanding of materiality where political agency is concentrated in the hands of powerful individuals or institutions. However, this focus potentially obscures the complex material agencies of the systems of automation themselves. In response, this paper develops the conceptual potentials of the accident to bring these overlooked interruptive material agencies to the fore. This provides us with an opportunity to appreciate how the sites o..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Kevin Grove and the three anonymous reviewers for their close engagement with the paper and for their critical feedback and generous suggestions which greatly sharpened the argument. I would also like to thank Lizzie Richardson and Peter Thomas for reading and commenting on an earlier version. I am grateful for the valuable feedback that I received following presentations of the paper at the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, and the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University. This research was funded by the Australian Research Council (DP160100979 and FT170100059).