[Linganth] Shawn Bender's book, Feeling Machines

[Ilana Gershon]

Dear Colleagues,
Today on the CaMP blog, Shawn Bender answers Nick Seaver's questions about
his book, Feeling Machines: Japanese Robotics and the Global Entanglements
of More-than-Human Care.

campanthropology.org

Best,
Ilana

Press blurb: In recent years, debates over healthcare have accompanied
rapid advances in technology, from the expansion of telehealth services to
artificial intelligence driven diagnostics. In this book, Shawn Bender
delves into the world of Japanese robots engineered for care. Care
robots (kaigo
robotto) emerged early in the 21st century, when roboticists began
converting assembly line technologies into responsive machines for older
adults and people with disabilities. These robots are meant to be felt and
programmed to feel. While some greet them with enthusiasm, others fear that
they might replace a fundamentally human task. Based on fieldwork in Japan,
Denmark, and Germany, Bender traces the emergence of care robots in Japan
and examines their impact on therapeutic practice around the world. Social
science scholarship on robotics tends to be either speculative—imagining
life together with robots—or experimental—observing robot-human interaction
in laboratories or through short-term field studies. Instead, Bender
follows roboticists developing technologies in Japan, and travels with the
robots themselves into everyday sites of care, tracking the integration of
robots into institutional care and the connection of care practice to
robotics development. By exploring the application of Japanese robotics
across the globe, Feeling Machines highlights the entanglements of
therapeutic practice and technological innovation in an age of
more-than-human care.
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