This free lecture from Dr Debbie Hopkins uses ‘Schrödinger’s Trucker’ as a metaphor to describe the ways through which mobile workers are simultaneously present and absent in discourse, policy and practice. Drawing on a decade’s empirical research in the UK road haulage industry, including the ESRC ‘Trucking Lives’ project, Dr Hopkins will use visual and textual storytelling to depict the everyday experiences of UK lorry drivers, showing how the presence–absence dynamic has material consequences: shaping working conditions, influencing policy blind spots, and reinforcing the invisibility of critical labour. By making these dynamics visible, we invite a broader reconsideration of how we recognise and value mobile work in contemporary society.

Free