Robots Won't Save Japan: An Ethnography of Eldercare Automation (The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work)

**__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. 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 eldercare, 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 caregiving 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. Robots Won't Save Japan 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 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y "The book is an anthropological examination of the Japanese government's ongoing attempts to develop and implement robots as a solution to its crisis in elder care"-- Provided by publisher