Consumer drone evolutions: trends, spaces, temporalities, threats

‘Everyday droning’: Towards a feminist geopolitics of the drone-home

“…In what follows, we thus focus on alternative and under-accounted for drone mobilisations through engaging diverse non-state actors who are (speculatively) designing, commercially marketing and/or living with drones-at-home in the Global North. Here, we recognise that the age of readily accessible consumer drones ushers in a range of under-accounted everyday droning practices and harms (Jackman, 2019), those which both raise questions of privilege (Jackman and Jablonowski, 2021) and are variously gendered (Thomasen, 2018) and racialised (Allinson, 2015). In the telling of further and 'contradictory drone stories' (Jablonowski, 2015: 13), we thus turn to feminist geopolitics to interrogate the home's vertical airspace and its horizontal axis.…”

“…While recognising the importance of interrogating drone capitalism as 'practices of value production via the autonomous sensor' (Richardson, 2018: 80), we argue that there remain alternative practices of drone consumption by non-state actors such as citizens, those rendering visible a range of experiences of everyday droning. Commercially-available consumer drones are increasingly mobilised to both disrupt airspace and activities below and inflict emotional and physical harm through diverse forms of weaponization (Bradley and Cerella, 2019;Davies, 2019;Jackman, 2019). The drone, we contend, furthers the ambiguity of home as a site of protection versus harm, thus compelling greater focus on neglected drone harms.…”

“…Drone scholarship also raises similar questions of drone protection for whom (Shaw, 2016a;Wall, 2013Wall, , 2016? While drone scholars are increasingly attentive to non-state-deployed drones (Choi-Fitzpatrick, 2019;Crampton, 2016;Fish et al, 2018;Jackman, 2019;Kaplan, 2020;Schnepf 2019), including what Parks (2016: 227) describes as the drone's 'softer, neoliberal side', there nonetheless remains a paucity of work attentive to the scale of the home, and its intersections with narratives and experiences of protection. Here, we can return to the article's opening vignette.…”

Crashed! Why Drone Delivery Is Another Tech Idea not Ready to Take Off

“…Overall, drone delivery was economically-viable as merchants can drastically reduce the labour and transportation cost while making sure customers can receive their product in a short period (Pillai, 2019). On the other hand, consumers deemed drone delivery as an innovative service and effort from merchants to meet their needs even though they were unhappy and anxious about the outfitting of drones with hazardous material as echoed by both military forces and political leaders alike Jackman, 2019).…”

“…Besides, regulations focusing on protecting consumer privacy and security have been minimal, putting consumers' safety at risk (Chang et al, 2017). The fact that the drone was heavily related to military and defence in the past, for instance, the drone attack on an airport in Saudi Arabia that killed one person and wounded seven has influenced the consumers' perceived risk in drone as food delivery services and caused negative emotions like unhappiness, anxiety, or frustration in the consumers (Chan, 2019;Hwang and Choe, 2019;Jackman, 2019). Furthermore, permission from the public authority is required for a drone to fly above highways is also time-consuming (Dejonghe, 2019).…”