About this Event
Title: When Robots Meet Older People: An Approach from Science & Technology Studies (STS)
Abstract:
Population ageing and the ongoing crisis of care — intensified by the retrenchment of welfare states — have positioned care robots as an increasingly visible policy response, often framed through a discourse of technological solutionism that presents automation as a self-evident solution to a structural social problem. This presentation draws on Science and Technology Studies (STS) to critically examine this framing, asking not only whether a robot can care, but what forms of society, subjectivity, and relationality are being enacted — and foreclosed — when robots are proposed as carers for older people. Drawing on examples from real-world care robot initiatives and deployments, the talk identifies three aspects that merit particular attention: first, the need to attend to the kind of society that any technological innovation carries with it, rather than treating technologies as neutral fixes; second, a critical interrogation of the stereotypes of older age that circulate within the technological imaginaries underpinning these devices; and third, the importance of granting older people themselves an active and meaningful role in the design and development processes that will shape the technologies meant to care for them. The presentation argues that an STS sensibility — attentive to the sociotechnical, material, and political dimensions of care — offers a necessary counterpoint to techno-solutionist narratives in this field.
Presenters:
Professor Miquel Domènech
Director, Department of Social Psychology
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Additional Details:
Join us on Wednesday, October 14th, 2026 · 4:00 – 5:00 PM EST
Hybrid Event with Online Boardcasting
Registered participants will receive the event link by email on the day of the event.
Questions?
Please email JCB, [email protected].
Event venue & nearby stays
Health Sciences Building, 155 College Street, Toronto, Canada
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.