The Cares and Failures of Sociotechnical Imaginaries: When a Robot Reads With Children

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Care, Resistance, and Learning in Media (Table 35)

Abstract

In this study, we explore the sociotechnical imaginaries and educational cares when a robot becomes a node within the traditional welfare system where public libraries, tech corporations, schools, children, and books meet in an endeavour to encourage and develop children’s reading. Drawing on concepts from science- and technology studies, our study shows how reading (with a robot) is enacted as a care practice, where caring for the children’s reading is displaced by care for the robot, in practices that uphold the enchantment of the robot. Caring for the robot has unexpected and unintended effects such as failures, disruptions, exclusions and even violence, which chafe with the aims of using the robot in the first place.

Authors

• Elin Sundström Sjödin, Mälardalen University

• Lina Rahm, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan