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And say the robotic cat responded?: On the use of robotic animals in dementia caree
Mälardalen University, School of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Health and Welfare. (Hållbart arbetsliv, HAL)ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9902-1191
CESAR, Uppsala University, Sweden. (CESAR)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6941-5760
Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning (IBL), Division of Education and Sociology, Linköping University, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2818-8001
2022 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Among the innovations within health and welfare technology during recent years, robot animals used in dementia care are one of the more debated devices. These robotic cats and dogs, built to respond to sound, movement and touch, are used to calm, activate and entertain users. Concerns have been raised both in scholarly work and in mass media that robots risk dehumanizing care work: if robots replace human beings, patients’ encounters with other humans will be reduced, and the remaining care workers will be turned into robot maintenance staff, rather than doing the care work for which they were hired. In this paper we take a closer look at the ideas of animality that shape the robots and their application in care organizations, and discuss the critique against them. We base this discussion on news articles, marketing materials, and ethnographic work in dementia care that we have conducted in care homes in Sweden. Adopting a posthumanist perspective, we show how the robots’ animality is constructed through the use of culturally rooted conceptions of nonhuman animals. Robotic animals can be seen as materializations of care organizations, as expectations on encounters between patients and caregivers, as well as conceptions of other animals and of basic human needs, are hard-wired into their construction. We also discuss how questions about work environment and human dignity are raised in relation to the implementation of robotic animals. We conclude that while robotic animals may reproduce an anthropocentric understanding of human-animal relations, the manufacturing and consumption of robotic animals can also be seen as a testament of the importance of nonhuman animals in the lives of humans. By asking “And say the animal responded?” Jacques Derrida challenges his readers to take seriously animals’ resistance against humans’ categorizations and metaphorical use of them. Robotic animals are rarely designed to ‘respond’ in Derrida’s sense. “BARKBACK” and “VibraPurr” technology aside, robots are not programmed to imitate disobedient or aggressive behavior that would truly resist humans’ categorizations and preconceptions of pet animals. Nevertheless, there is an other-than-human animality that makes itself felt through the human-robot interaction, and which reinforces some nonhuman animals’ special status in the lives of humans. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Västerås, 2022.
Keywords [en]
Care robotics, dementia care, elderly care, Jacques Derrida, feminist materialism, Donna Haraway, human-animal studies, posthumanism, technological entrapment, welfare technology
National Category
Sociology Social Work Social Psychology
Research subject
Working Life Studies; Industrial Economics and Organisations; Social Work; Care Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-59153OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-59153DiVA, id: diva2:1671408
Conference
After Method in Organization Studies IV: The Epistemology of Practice, Mälardalen University, 16-17 June
Funder
AFA Insurance, 190170Available from: 2022-06-17 Created: 2022-06-17 Last updated: 2022-06-21Bibliographically approved

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Redmalm, David

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