Dispositions towards automation: Capital, technology, and labour relations in aeromobilities

Abstract

With the rapid rise of supercomputers, artificial intelligence, and advanced forms of robotics, recent years have seen a resurgence in interest in automation in the academy. In geography, scholars have yielded some important insights on the mottled relations between humans and machines as capital moves towards a more high-tech form of production. In this paper, we seek to extend these debates by delving into how labour's relations with automation do not always reactively vacillate between capitulation and adaptation. Instead, they are more ambiguously swayed by broader ‘dispositions towards automation’, which are generated either through practice, or by machines themselves that are designed to appeal to human desires and wants. Drawing on examples from aeromobilities and, particularly, airports, this paper shows how various in-process tendencies, or ‘points of meeting’, of human-technology assemblages enable and creatively rework automation in ways that are culturally specific and ideologically supportive of capital. We consider five different dispositions – namely, enchantment, aspiration, experimentation, gamification, and acquiescence – as starting points for further dialogues on technological relations and resistances in geography.

Emplacing the disposition toward automation

“…The above examples of automation's positionalities reveal the disposition's underlying structure, which manifests as a pair of intertwined affective tendencies that amplify certain human experiences while simultaneously reducing others. However, the five dispositions proposed by Lin et al (2024) are primarily supportive of the labor force's adaptation to automation. Hence, this section reminds us of the constant co-existence of the affective tendencies that may cause a rejection of automation, as discussed in this section, the sense of repulsion, confusion, suspicion, or insecurity.…”

“…Disposition, as a less-explored concept in human geography, refers to an intangible affective force that governs our existence in the world (Lin et al, 2024). In their study, Lin et al evaluated how automation affects the aeromobility labor force.…”

Automation and environmental dispositions

“…In their words, 'dispositions … [are] … constituted in and through … assemblages', where 'a disposition … is … gradually shaped through or transformed by multiple events'. Here, 'particular dispositions are located … not then in or necessarily of the body or a single entity itself' (Lin et al, 2024). Different dispositions towards automation can therefore be defined as 'the in-process tendencies, or "points of meeting," of human-technology assemblages which enable, creatively rework and resist automation'.…”

Moving towards a critical perspective on automation: Theories of technology, labour, and capitalism

“…The authors' obfuscation of terms like enchantment and phantasmagoria not uncommon in geographical scholarshipas citations to Anderson (2017) and Goss (1999) indicatebut in this slippage useful nuance is lost. To take Walter Benjamin's approach, for example, enchantment and phantasmagoria need not dwell in the spectacular and intentionally captivating to find enchantment does not require a feature that presents itself as enchanting or 'designed to produce a kind of "delight" that will surprise passengers in what is advertised as a "kaleideoscope of wonder"' (Lin et al, 2024). Enchantment and phantasmagoria as Benjamin describes in The Arcades Project (Benjamin, 1999)are intertwined with the banal commodity fetishisation of everyday life; of the push for perpetual newness and novelty that obscures the realities of labour, and distorts value.…”

“…A key example from the articlethe Jewel attraction at Changi airportis heavily reminiscent of the kinds of architectural wonders that historically featured at events like the World's Fairs or World Exhibitions, and which Walter Benjamin and others do cite as an exemplar of capitalist modernitybut enchantment is often far more than 'a "long-wow" disposition' (Lin et al, 2024). The section on Aspiration in many ways comes closer to a critical reading of enchantment through technologies of automation.…”