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Re-gendering the relation between men, masculinity and cars? On autonomous vehicles and emancipatory challenges
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5268-8957
Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7235-0179
2017 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

As the Nordic regions move into an era in need of sustainable mobility, there are many pressing concerns to be addressed. One of these is the strong connection between masculinity, power and car cultures. In this paper we take our point of departure in the anthromorphization of cars and trucks, and how this emotional and gendered relation needs to be questioned in order to meet future challenges. The phenomenon of autonomous ‘driverless’ cars can here be thought of as one possible emancipatory opportunity in relation to a wider movement of de-gendering and re-gendering motor vehicles. Based on various materials, including the project Trucks for all-developing norm-critical innovation at Volvo, we argue that autonomous vehicles can challenge the foundations of a gendered economy founded on masculinity, speed, pleasure, and embodiment. The advent of ‘driverless’ cars may point in a direction where the traditional imaginary of the active “male” driver may loose ground, even pointing towards a ‘de-masculinization’ of future transport vehicles. However, rather than thinking in terms of a process of a de-masculinization it seems more appropriate to anticipate a development of re-gendering and re-segregation where certain forms of masculine gendered economies of pleasure will lose ground and others will become more foregrounded.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2017.
Keywords [en]
de-gendering, masculinity, autonomous vehicles, trucks, anthromorphization
National Category
Gender Studies
Research subject
Gender Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-83393OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-83393DiVA, id: diva2:1444523
Conference
Gendering Smart Mobilities in the Nordic Region, Oslo Science Park, Oslo, Norway, August 24-25, 2017
Projects
Lastbilar för alla: Utveckling av norm-kritisk innovation på Volvo
Funder
Vinnova, 2016-04214Available from: 2020-06-22 Created: 2020-06-22 Last updated: 2020-08-25Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
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  • Other locale
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Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf