Abstract
The media and political-managerial levels focus on the opportunities to re-perform the Scandinavian welfare states through digitization. Especially in Denmark, this trend is prominent. Welfare technology is a Scandinavian notion used to point at assistive technologies intending to support the elderly, the disabled and care providers. Feeding assistive robotics (FAR) is a welfare technology relevant to citizens with no or low function in their arms. Despite national dissemination strategies, it proves difficult to recruit suitable users. There have been many promises for the potential of assistive robotics including more cost-efficient healthcare delivery, engaged patients and connected care providers. However, the realities of enacting assistive robotics, whether as patients or care providers, can be complicated in ways often unanticipated by government agencies and technology developers. This study discusses governmental agencies’ and technology developers’ visions with regard to what robotics may do and argues that these visions intertwine with affected stakeholders’ organizing of theirworlds. On this founding, the article discusses the resulting tinkering during implementation. The study exemplifies and demonstrates how ethnography can be used as an important method in Human Robot Interaction (HRI) research. The Actor Network Theory idea of ‘follow the actor’ inspired the study that took place as multi-sited ethnography at different locations in Denmark and Sweden. Based on desk research, observation of meals and interviews the study examines sociotechnical imaginaries and their practical and ethical implications.Human and FAR interaction demands engagement, sustained patience and understanding of the citizen’s particular body, identity and situation. The article contributes to the HRI literature by providing detailed empirical analysis based on an ethnographic studywhere political strategies, technology developers’ assumptions and affected stakeholders’ everyday hassles are in focus at the same time.
References
[1] Regeringen, Fællesoffentlig Strategi for Digital Velfærd, 2013- 2020, Digital Velfærd - en lettere hverdag, 2013 (The government, Joint Public Strategy for Digital Welfare, 2013-2020, Digital Welfare - an easier everyday life)Search in Google Scholar
[2] L. Gaedt, Spiserobot til borgere med fysisk handicap, Velfærdssteknologi vurdering i Socialstyrelsens ABT projekt, Teknologisk Institut Robotteknologi, 2013 (Feeding Assistive Robotics for citizens with physical disabilities technology assessment in the Social Agency’s ABT project, Technological Institute Robotics, 2013)Search in Google Scholar
[3] N. Nickelsen, Criteria of implementing feeding assistance robots in disability care - a sociomaterial perspective, Journal of Comparative Social Work, 2013, 8(2), 1-2010.31265/jcsw.v8i2.100Search in Google Scholar
[4] M. Juksa, A techno-anthropological investigation of the design assumptions of the assistive eating technology, Master thesis, Department of Planning, Aalborg University, 2015Search in Google Scholar
[5] B. Martinsen, B. Paterson, I. Harder, F. Biering-Sørensen, The nature of feeding completely dependent persons: A metaethnography, International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 2007, 2, 208-21610.1080/17482620701296291Search in Google Scholar
[6] G. Roos, Technology-Driven Productivity Improvements and the Future of Work - Emerging Research and Opportunities, IGI Global, 201710.4018/978-1-5225-2179-2Search in Google Scholar
[7] R. Susskind, D. Susskind, The Future of the Professions - How Technology will Transform the Work of Human Experts, Oxford University Press, 201510.1093/oso/9780198713395.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
[8] D. Lupton, Critical Perspectives on Digital Health Technologies, Sociology Compass, 2014, 8(12), 1344-135910.1111/soc4.12226Search in Google Scholar
[9] A. Mol, I. Moser, J. Pols, Care in Practice: On Tinkering in Clinics, Homes and Farms, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 201010.1515/transcript.9783839414477Search in Google Scholar
[10] S. Jasanoff, Future imperfect: Science, technology, and the imaginations of modernity, In: S. Jasanoff, S. Kim (Eds.), Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 201510.7208/chicago/9780226276663.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
[11] W. Orlikowski, The sociomateriality of organizational life: Considering technology in management research, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2010, 34, 125-14110.1093/cje/bep058Search in Google Scholar
[12] W. Orlikowski, Using technology and constituting structures: a practice lens for studying technology in organizations, Organization Science, 2000, 11, 404-42810.1287/orsc.11.4.404.14600Search in Google Scholar
[13] S. Timmermans, S. Epstein, A World of Standards, but not a Standard World: Toward a Sociology of Standards and Standardization, Annual Review of Sociology, 2010, 36, 69-8910.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102629Search in Google Scholar
[14] B. Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society, Harvard University Press, 1987Search in Google Scholar
[15] S. Jasanoff, S. Kim, Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 201510.7208/chicago/9780226276663.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
[16] M. McNeal, M. Arribas-Ayllon, J. Haran, A. Mackenzie, R. Tutton, Conceptualizing imaginaries of science, technology and society, In: U. Felt, R. Fouché, C. A. Miller, L. Smith-Doerr (Eds.), The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies 4th Edition, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2017, 435-464Search in Google Scholar
[17] S. Kim, Social movements and contested sociotechnical imaginaries in South Korea, In: S. Jasanoff, S. Kim (Eds.), Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2015Search in Google Scholar
[18] B. Anderson, Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, 1st ed. Verso Books, 1983Search in Google Scholar
[19] M. Bernsen, Silicon Vallensbæk og Kalundfornien, Weekendavisen, 2017Search in Google Scholar
[20] S. Slota, G. Bowker, How infrastructures matter, In: U. Felt, R. Fouché, C. A. Miller, L. Smith-Doerr (Eds.), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, Fourth Edition, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2017Search in Google Scholar
[21] S. Star, The ethnography of infrastructure, American Behavioral Scientist, 1999, 43, 377-39110.1177/00027649921955326Search in Google Scholar
[22] B. Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor- Network Theory, New York, Oxford, 2005Search in Google Scholar
[23] J. Law, Organizing Modernity, Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1994Search in Google Scholar
[24] I. Moser, On becoming disabled and articulating alternatives - the multiple modes of ordering disability and their interferences, Cultural Studies, 2005, 19, 610.1080/09502380500365648Search in Google Scholar
[25] M. Winance, Care and disability: Practices of experimenting, tinkering with, and arranging people and technical aids, In: A. Mol, I. Moser, J. Pols (Eds.), Care in Practice: On Tinkering in Clinics, Homes and Farms, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 201010.1515/transcript.9783839414477.93Search in Google Scholar
[26] I. Moser, J. Law, Good passages, bad passages, In: J. Law, J. Hassard (Eds.), Actor Network Theory and after, Oxford : Sociological Review and Blackwell, 199910.1111/j.1467-954X.1999.tb03489.xSearch in Google Scholar
[27] A. Mol, Proving or improving: on health care research as a form of self-reflection, Qualitative Health Research, 2006, 16, 405-41410.1177/1049732305285856Search in Google Scholar PubMed
[28] B. Flyvbjerg, Five misunderstandings about case-study research, Qualitative Inquiry, 2006, 12(2) 219-24510.1177/1077800405284363Search in Google Scholar
[29] R. Yin, Case Study Research, Design and Methods, 5th ed., SAGE Publications, London, 2014Search in Google Scholar
[30] G. Marcus, Ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography, Annual Review of Anthropology, 1995, 24, 95-11710.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523Search in Google Scholar
[31] Kommunernes Landsforening, Statusmåling vedrørende Velfærdssteknologi (Local Government DK, Status measurement with regard to welfare technology), 2017Search in Google Scholar
[32] A. Van Wynsberghe, Healthcare Robots: Ethics, Design and Implementation, Springer, Dordrecht, 2014Search in Google Scholar
[33] S. Star, Power, technology and the phenomenology of conventions: On being allergic to onions, In: J. Law (Ed.), A Sociology of Monsters, Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, Routledge, London, 1999Search in Google Scholar
[34] L. Floridi, Philosophy and Computing, Routledge, London, 1999Search in Google Scholar
[35] Regeringen, Regeringsgrundlaget - et Danmark der står Sammen (Government basis, A Denmark United), 2011Search in Google Scholar
© 2019 Niels Christian Mossfeldt Nickelsen, published by De Gruyter
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.