Robots Won't Save Japan : : An Ethnography of Eldercare Automation / / James Wright.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2023
• VerfasserIn: Wright, James,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2023]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (198 p.) :; 6 b&w halftones

Robots Won't Save Japan addresses the Japanese government's efforts to develop care robots in response to the challenges of an aging population, rising demand for elder care, and a critical shortage of care workers. Drawing on ethnographic research at key sites of Japanese robot development and implementation, James Wright reveals how such devices are likely to transform the practices, organization, meanings, and ethics of care-giving if implemented at scale. This new form of techno-welfare state that Japan is prototyping involves a reconfiguration of care that deskills and devalues care work and reduces opportunities for human social interaction and relationship-building. Moreover, contrary to expectations that care robots will save labor and reduce health-care expenditures, robots cost more money and require additional human labor to tend to the machines. As Wright shows, robots alone will not rescue Japan from its care crisis. The attempts to implement robot care instead point to the importance of looking beyond such techno-fixes to consider how to support rather than undermine the human times, spaces, and relationships necessary for sustainably cultivating good care.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Transliteration -- Introduction -- 1. Crisis and Care Robots -- 2. Developing Robots and Designing Algorithmic Care -- 3. Portrait of a Care Home -- 4. Hug: Reconfiguring Lifting -- 5. Paro: Reconfiguring Communication -- 6. Pepper: Reconfiguring Recreation -- 7. Beyond Care Robots -- Notes -- References -- Index