“Between me and the machine”: on the apparent suppression of embodied know-how in the automated world and its implications

In an era of rapid technological progress that promises to reshape the relationship between workers and machines in unprecedented ways, an oft-invoked claim concerns the potential of automation to “free” the human body, predicting a decline in the role of embodied know-how. To counterbalance the lack of empirical analysis underlying such assumptions, our qualitative study surveys two automated work environments to explore how automation renders specific modes of bodily engagement irreducible: the emerging case of automated driving and the case of skilled cork workers. Drawing on a theoretical and empirical stance anchored in the field study tradition of work psychology and activity ergonomics, Study 1 reveals that automated vehicles are designed around a discreet bodily presence, though a vigilant body and ready to intervene, and thus irreplaceable in dealing with dysfunctions of automatisms. In turn, Study 2 illustrates how automated cork processing calls for a specific bodily intelligence that defies artificial compartmentalisation: a sensorial, subjective, cognitive, and social presence. Taken together, these findings support a critical reassessment of the Cartesian associations of duality and the promise that automation physically “relieves” workers. Building on a non-dualist ontology of the body and its work environment, we discuss how the role and relevance of bodily engagement are today reconfigured by emerging technologies, remaining vital in increasingly automated settings. Our research also contributes to practice and intervention by providing situated implications for occupational health and safety, skills preservation and development, and professional identity, with the aim of fostering collaborative and sustainable human-technology configurations.