Sidewalks are for people? Futuristic fantasies, disabled lives, and crip sitveillance

Abstract

This article considers so-called self-driving food delivery robots in relation to crip studies and surveillance studies. We analyze these disenabling technologies through a crip positionality we name crip sitveillance — sousveillance practiced from the sitpoint of crip subjects that engages irony and parody to highlight how new surveillance technologies disenable crip lives. We explore as well responses to these vehicles on social media, in which we find evidence that these vehicles provoke unease and, perhaps, emerging crip sousveillant subject positions.