EMMA QUILTY

Emma Quilty is trained in anthropology and works in the field of feminist science and technology studies. Based at Monash University, she is currently a research fellow in the Centre for Excellence for The Elimination of Violence Against Women working in the technology-facilitated violence and harnessing technology to prevent violence against women workstream. Her research focuses on the gendered and racialised aspects of technology design, development and deployment. Emma’s writing explores technology, power and gender and has been published in AI & Society, Mobilites, and Senses & Society. Her forthcoming book Witchy Feminism is under contract with Polity Books and will be published in their gender studies series.

Emma is an Affiliate of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. Previously Emma worked as a Research Fellow within the on the Future Automated Mobilities project. In this role she developed a critical concept called Pod Man that examines the gendered and racial formations are embedded into technologies like self-driving cars. This concept draws on two reports she led: on automation in transport mobilities scoping study and expert visions of future automated mobilities. As part of this portfolio of work on gender, technology and trust, she co-produced a short film – She’s Not Alone – that was nominated for a number of awards and screened at a number of film festivals including the Sydney Women's International Film Festival and the Women Deliver Arts & Film Festival.

Emma’s work on trust and technology has been published in a number of avenues including AI & Society and the Monash Lens. She also has a book (co-authored with Sarah Pink) under contract titled Can We Trust Technology. She has also worked on the ARC Linkage Project Net Zero Precincts where she led the ethnographic fieldwork. Her research from this project has appeared in the journal Senses and Society and speaks to entangled nature of climate and colonialism.

During Emma’s PhD in anthropology she undertook a four-year immersive journey into contemporary witchcraft, tracing its roots in 1950s England and its emergence alongside second wave feminism to gatherings in the contemporary Australia.  Speaking from both her anthropological and personal experience as a witch, Emma illuminates the world of witchcraft while grappling in fresh and unexpected ways with the question underlying both of these social movements: how does the position and power of patriarchy shape everyday life? Her writing on this subject includes discussions of the body and ritual, queer embodiment and performing witchy identities in digital spaces.

The Problem with Pod Man - by Emma Quilty
Illustration by Mirranda Burton

Watch the film here