Different Modes of Engagement - The Sensibilities of Feeding Assistive Robotics

• In Event: Sensing Robots

Abstract

Assistive robotics are a new factor to be relied upon in caring for the disabled and the elderly. A number of feeding assistive robotics (FAR) appear in the literature. However, very few ethnographic studies have explored the reception. This is the case although there are significant potential and also a row of unsolved problems. Challenges have been reported concerning the challenges the care providers have in succeeding to create a relevant interplay between the disabled body and the (FAR). When this effort is unsuccessful, the result is stressful work and demeaning situations for the disabled and for caregivers.
In this paper, I take up two ethnographic resources: 1) retrospective studies of the design process of the ‘Bestic’-FAR 2) an empirical study of the reception in a housing institution for the disabled of the ‘Neater-Eater’- FAR. Analysis of this material unravels the intermingling of a number of values from core participants, such as the disabled, the care assistants and the producer. This leads to a discussion of different modes of engagement focusing on the overall questions: To what extend are usage scenarios pre-scripted by the FAR? Taking STS as an analytic resource, this leads to a discussion of what the FAR is supposed to attend to and what implications that leads to. What knowledge of the sensible world is for instance inscripted into the FAR and how do different parties take this up? What do we learn about our own (in)sensibilities when we examine the design and use of feeding robotics?

Author

• Niels Christian Nickelsen, Aarhus University, Department of Education