Off Our Streets: Forms of Refusal as Counter-Participation in the Context of Public-Area Mobile Robots

Abstract

This paper discusses practices of refusal directed at public-area mobile robots (PMRs) in urban public spaces. Drawing on scholarship in Science and Technology Studies (STS), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and participatory design, we conceptualize refusal not as passive non-use or anti-technology sentiment, but as a form of active and politically meaningful counter-participation. Building on Casemajor et al.’s framework of active non-participation, we identify and analyze three forms through which communities refuse and resist PMRs: vandalism and sabotage, deferred refusal, and hacking and commoning. Using empirical cases including campaigns against delivery and security robots, as well as acts of disruption targeting autonomous vehicles, we examine the publics that form around these technologies, the matters of concern that animate them, and the distinct political registers at which refusal operates. We argue that many tensions surrounding PMRs cannot be resolved through more inclusive design processes alone, because the underlying concerns are often structural and political rather than merely functional. In response, we suggest extending participatory design beyond co-designing technical systems toward socio-political design that supports communities in shaping the governance, ownership, and regulatory conditions under which technologies enter public life.