Sweet surrender? Changing autonomobile structures of feeling

Abstract

ABSTRACT Imaginaries of smart, sustainable autonomous vehicles carrying people of all ages and abilities to relax en-route to myriad destinations, evoke a sweet surrender to the machine. But such technocratic visions clash with visions of non-anthropocentric autonomy. The urgency of mobility transformation in the face of ecological overshoot makes this a site of turbulence where new “structures of feeling” are emerging. But how to study changing structures of feeling and apply insights? In this paper we discuss an exploratory study with twelve users of autonomous vehicles, non-users, engineers, and experts in China and the UK who used galvanic skin response sensors to probe their autonomobile emotions. Extending Christian Nold’s Bio Mapping approach, we discuss fissures in values and norms about mobility and the prospect of doughnut mobilities, concluding with reflections on applied mobilities research.