| dc.description.abstract | By talking with people who work in eldercare as well as those involved in work on robotics, I look at how robotic seals are exceeding the traditional uses of automation. During a time of global population aging, technology is put forward as a tool to assist the healthcare sector. The design of health strategy plans in New Zealand suggests that the use of healthcare assistive technology will be useful in the coming years of increased aging and rising dementia cases, with robots being complementary to the establishment of a healthcare system that emphasizes self-management. Some of these machines perform practical tasks, while an emerging new field in robotics is using robots to partake in labor that involves social interaction. The use of robots for companionship is known to generate anxiety about the potential loss of human care. However, in contrast to technology that operates on capitalist principles of growth and progression, Paro, a robotic seal used in eldercare, is proving to contribute to a humanizing effect. I investigate how technology can operate on principles of care and companionship despite the impact of political and economic trends that influence the development and use of technology. With the significance of New Public Management in the welfare state of New Zealand, the use of Paro and other companion robots can be interpreted as a tool used to cut down on healthcare related expenses (for example substitute human carers). However, engaging ethnographically in this field of automated care reveals the use of robots for companionship is more complex than automation, it involves services of care and connection. By studying the introduction of this new species of companions I describe how the robots are positioned somewhere between the boundaries of machine and human in the epistemological view that dominates ‘Western’ discourse. An epistemological positioning that undermines the assemblage of care enjoyed by older generations with robotic friends. | eng |