Introduction Autonomous Driving and the Transformation of Car Cultures

• Published in: Transfers Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 15 - 23
• Main Authors: Weber, Jutta, Kröger, Fabian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berghahn Journals 22.03.2018; Berghahn Books, Inc
• Subjects: Analysis; Driverless cars; Masculinity; Motor vehicle driving; Social aspects; gender; race; self-driving; driverless; automobility; masculinity; automotive; autonomous driving
• ISSN: 2045-4813; 2045-4821
• DOI: 10.3167/TRANS.2018.080103

This special section on “Degendering the Driver” explores how gender intervenes in the potential shift from a driver-centered to a driverless car culture. It focuses on representations of imagined futures—prototypes, media images, and popular discourses of driverless cars. Following the tradition of feminist cultural studies of technoscience, we ask in our introduction how these new techno-imaginaries of autonomous driving are gendered and racialized. We aim to explore if the future user of an autonomous car is gendered or degendered in the current media discourse. The four articles explore what kinds of images are used, what promises are made, and how the discourse about autonomous driving is influenced by gendered norms. Some authors emphasize that self-driving vehicles could encourage pluralized forms of masculinity. Nonetheless, all authors conclude that driverless cars alone will not degender the driver but rather encourage a multiplication of gendered and racialized technologies of mobility.