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Accepted Paper:
The Problem with Pod Man
Emma Quilty
(Monash University)
This paper will explore the limitations of the transport sector's visions for the future through the figure of Pod Man. Pod Man has been created to draw attention to the pervasive gendered, classist and racially coded ideas about the future users of automated transport.
Paper long abstract:
This paper introduces the figure of Pod Man who has been created to draw attention to the pervasive gendered, classist and racially coded ideas about the future users of automated transport. This paper focuses on the key discourses imagining the future users of transport by drawing on insights from the content analysis of 58 industry, consultancy and government reports, future projections and strategic plans. While many of these documents promise a future with increased safety, accessibility and productivity, these benefits and freedoms will only be available to certain social groups. Previous research examining visual advertisements for future modes of transport shows how the users of the pod are often depicted as white, professional, able-bodied and male, unburdened by complications of gender, ethnicity, class, (dis)ability or familial responsibilities (Wigley and Rose 2002). This paper extends this idea of ‘users of the pod’ and high-tech cocoons (Urry 2008) through the figure of the Pod Man, to allow for a critical satirisation of these future visions. This paper will create new anthropological insights by engaging with STS and feminist scholarship to examine the socio-technical dimensions of designing automated futures.