Author : James Wright
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501768069
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)
Book Synopsis Robots Won't Save Japan by : James Wright
Download or read book Robots Won't Save Japan written by James Wright and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2023-02-15 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.