Sweden's push to use robots in elder care masks a troubling conflict
A new study reveals that Swedish policymakers and tech companies are promoting robots and monitoring devices for aging populations, but their visions for care clash fundamentally with how care workers and patients actually experience it. The disconnect matters: how nations automate elder care will determine whether seniors gain independence or lose dignity—and whether care work becomes more valued or further eroded.
Originaltitel: The Imaginaries and Politics of Welfare Technology: Renegotiating Elder Care Through Technology for an Ageing Population
<p>In Sweden, a particular class of technology is imagined as a solution to an ageing population. “Welfare technology” is used in politics and policy documents to describe technology aiming to improve welfare through increased safety, activity, participation, and independence for those with (or who risk developing) disabilities. The thesis focuses on welfare technology in elder care where it is used to, for example, administer medicine, watch over people when they sleep, and provide company through touch and conversation. The development and implementation of welfare technology is explored in two contexts: municipal care organizations and robotics research. The thesis analyzes the sociotechnical and robotic imaginaries informing the development and implementation of welfare technology and how they are materialized in the decision-making practices of municipal care organizations and robotics research. It also analyzes how ideals and practices of care and care work are renegotiated through the development and implementation of welfare technology, and what this implies for the organization and valuation of elder care in Sweden. The analysis shows tensions between how different actors imagine the promises of welfare technology, and between imaginaries of welfare technology for elder care and the characteristics and limitations of the organizations and technologies they rely on to materialize. It also points to how the development and implementation of welfare technology renegotiates ideals and practices of care away from an emphasis on human contact toward independent and remote care, mobilizing a fragmenting logic where elder care is explored for potentially delegable tasks. Finally, the thesis argues that discussions on how to maintain elder care provision in light of an ageing population cannot zoom in on welfare technology but need to make elder care a priority in more ways than as an opportunity for innovation.</p>