Technology in Society 77 (2024) 102559

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Technology in Society
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/techsoc‘Social’ robot and social relations in care settings: Undefined positionality
and fixed temporality
Yuko Tamaki Welply , Sébastien Lechevalier *Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales-Institut de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux sociaux, Bâtiment Recherche Sud, 5 cours des Humanités, 93322
Aubervilliers cedex, France

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords:
Social robots
Eldercare
Script literature
Care ethics
Temporality

Socially assistive robots in eldercare settings, i.e. ‘social’ robots, are currently being promoted and studied,particularly in Japan. Among these studies, clinical evaluation of their effectiveness in experimental researchpredominates, while studies that critically and analytically describe relations between actors in long-term caresettings where robots are present are growing but still scarce. In this paper, we argue that understanding howolder adults facing the loss of autonomy and their caregivers interact with robots in relational terms is helpful toexplain the usage and non-usage of, and eventual resistance to social robots entering into care settings. This iswhy, in order to understand human relationships with social robots in elder care homes, this paper combines a‘script’ approach and a ‘critical care’ one. Based on content analysis of a unique set of reports on trials of a social
robot in multiple care facilities in Japan from 2018 to 2020, as well as interviews with stakeholders andethnographic observations conducted in 2022, we answer two questions: 1) how do social robots shape social
relations of care? 2) how do social robots affect social relations between care professionals, care recipients androbots? We proceed to discuss two of the characteristics emphasised in the ethics of care and examine them in
depth: the positional and temporal aspects. Our major result is that, while the robot was easily adaptable to careenvironments because its position in relationships is not defined, embedded clock time flow in the robot was
objective and linear, which indicates that some robot-created situations were seen as problematic by actors incare settings.

Statement of ethical approval: The ethics evaluation committee ofInserm, the Institutional Review Board of the French Institute of medical
research and Health, gave ethical approval for this study (22–918).
This work was supported by a French government grant managed by
the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) under the France 2030
program, reference ANR-23-PAVH-0005 (INNOVCARE Project). It isalso part of an international doctoral research project which is funded
entirely by the French National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) andconstitutes a result of the research stay funding by EHESS (Paris,
France), its China, Korea, and Japan (CCJ) research centre, the Tepsis
program, as well as Fondation France-Japon de l’EHESS.

1. Introduction
In the context of increasing life expectancy, the growing number ofolder adults (OA) with cognitive impairment, as well as the scarcity ofcaregivers, are increasingly recognised as a serious, worldwide publicconcern, especially in industrialised countries [1]. There is rising opti­
mism that technology will play a role in addressing these issues and theeffects of technology as well as robots on OA is an increasingly important
theme in geriatrics and gerontology. Some ‘social’ robots, such as ani­maloid robots, are deemed to have the potential to complement or
replace pet therapy, a non-medical treatment of dementia care that the
Alzheimer’s Association in the United States recommends [2].1
In Japan, since 2015, the government’s ‘Society 5.0’ science andtechnology policy strategy has suggested that technology, including big* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sebastien.lechevalier@ehess.fr (S. Lechevalier).
1
Despite the numerous studies on social robots, there is no widely accepted definition of social robots. As in the case of social robots, it may be due to differing
meanings of each term: ‘social’ and ‘robot’ [77].
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2024.102559
Received 15 November 2023; Received in revised form 16 April 2024; Accepted 16 April 2024
Available online 22 April 2024
0160-791X/© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/).

Y. Tamaki Welply and S. LechevalierTechnology in Society 77 (2024) 102559

data and artificial intelligence, may well tackle the medical and caredifficulties of OA with cognitive impairment [3,4].2 Over the past
twenty years, Japanese society has seen increasingly rapid advances inservice robots and communication robots, contributing to the idea thatJapan is a world leader in the development of robotic technologies for
OA [5]. However, despite government initiatives and positive effects on
OA reported in research, robots have not proven to be widely employed,
at least in long-term care facilities (LTCF) [6].3
In this context, most studies in the field of geriatrics and gerontology
have focused on the effectiveness of robots on difficulties that OA face
[7–10]. Many of these studies have demonstrated the positive impact ofrobots mainly on OA but also on caregivers, at the level of individuals[11]. However, research so far has failed to resolve an importantparadox: whilst studies demonstrate a relatively high effectiveness ofrobots, there remains a low rate of robot adoption in care settings. To
date, there has been little agreement on what role robots can play in caresettings. In particular, what is not yet clear is the impact on or thetransformations of care relations at the level of social groups [11], inother words, caregivers and care receivers. This is because previous
studies did not properly take into account the perspective of a politics ofcare as referring to both the act and relationship of arising survival needs
and responding to them in a particular context and situation [12]. Care
practices always involve at least two people: the person needing care (orto whom needs are attributed) and the person responding to them [13].
Our study aims to contribute to this growing area of research byaddressing this gap in the literature, by focusing on relationships be­
tween care recipients, caregivers, and robots. This paper seeks to
examine neglected aspects of relationality and explores, in particular,
the position-related connectedness and the time-related connectedness
between these actors in the care setting by highlighting the position,role/function differences of [14,15] and the tempo/rhythm differencesof people and things [16]. Taking ‘social’ robots as a focal point
throughout the paper and assuming that the inclusion of social robots
influences relations in long-term care practices, we explore the two
following research questions: ‘how do social robots shape social re­lations of care?’ and ‘how do social robots affect social relations between
care professionals, care recipients and robots?’. The first researchquestion focuses on the way the robot develops and fosters close re­lationships between actors in the care setting, while the second sheds
light on the effects of these relationships on care practices. We empha­
size the relational nature of care in this paper since care is frequently
thought of as an act, yet care can only occur between two entities: onethat has needs and another that responds to those needs. The twoquestions are closely connected, with the second being a direct
follow-up to the first main question. To investigate care practices
involving social robots, we draw on the notion of ‘script’ [17–19],
because, as evidenced by Science and Technology Studies (STS), it isparticularly significant for assessing the relationship between humans
and technologies without separating them and modifying the lexicon foreach.
Our empirical strategy is to try to answer these questions by focusing
on a case study of social robot trials in Japanese care settings. Moreprecisely, the research data in this paper is drawn from three main
sources; two-year trial reports obtained from a robot provider; semistructured interviews with robot providers; and participant observa­
tion of trials conducted in LTCF.
This paper begins by introducing our theoretical approach. Then, it
dwells on our data and methodology. It is followed by our key findings,
which are organised according to the relationships as in the design andthe relationships developed throughout the trial. Finally, in the discus­sion, in order to understand the actors’ relationality in care settings,
these findings are analysed through the notions of positionality andtemporality.
2. Theoretical backgroundTo investigate the use of technology in eldercare, two different ap­
proaches have been primarily adopted. The majority of studies havebeen quantitative and are essentially based on clinical, laboratory, or
experimental investigations that study how technology might be used tosolve problematic conditions such as social isolation [20–22], poor
well-being [23–25] and depression [26]. For example, studies on ther­apeutic companion robots have found a rise in the frequency of inter­action among older persons at the micro level [27,28]. The perceptions
and the acceptability of OA and caregivers were also explored [29,30]
and it has been shown that perspectives among them have recently
shifted to the positive, with stronger hopes for telecare robotisation andfewer concerns about care robots’ compatibility with personal values[31]. These studies see technology as an interventionist solution [32,33]
and investigate human-robot relationships at the individual level [11].4
In contrast, there is a growing body of literature that draws on STS in­sights and the majority of investigations have been empirical andobservational in nature, including ethnographic inquiries into eldercare
contexts [34,35]. Several studies have demonstrated the diversity oftechnology usage (and non-use) with respect to how one engages withand through technologies according to one’s assumptions as well as
expectations [36,37]. They investigated the complex arrangement oftechnologies, care professionals, and care recipients, contributing to theaccumulation of empirical data on technology use in relational terms[38–40].
Publications that concentrate on studying actors and their relation­
ship with and through technologies tend to adopt a ‘script’ approach.
Possibly because if the relationship between caretakers, care recipients,
and technology is considered, each arrangement using technicalequipment requires distinct inspection in order to learn the forms ofsocial relations it delivers [41]. The notion of ‘script’ [17–19] offers afundamental methodological concept that helps explore and understandthe relationality of actors and non-human actors, including technolo­gies. Being an important and heuristic idea in social studies on therelationship between technology and people in the context of care [38,39,42–44], script is similar to a screenplay for a film or a play: therelationship between technology and people can be analysed like ascript, a connection between technology and people envisioned by thedesigner. Because technology is usually intended bearing humanbehaviour in mind, the script framework can also provide insights into
the designers’ social values and norms. According to a detailed summary
provided by Akrich and Latour (17), this concept is based on the lin­
guistic notions of ‘performance’ (the operation of using language) and‘competence’ (the ability to conform to grammatical rules). It assertsthat competence and performance are endowed and distributed toknowledge and artefacts, i.e. science and technology, and a crisis or atrial can reveal the envisioned, prescribed functions of technologies. The
authors clarify the difference between the two by explaining that action
itself is ‘defined by a list of performances through trials; from these
performances are deduced a set of competencies with which the actant isendowed’ [18]. They argue that scripts portray actors (or ‘actants’) andtheir behaviour as envisioned by the innovators’ side and thatcomparing performance to scripts through actual conflicts, confronta­
tions, and problematic situations is relevant in studying socio-technicalrelations.
There is a growing number of studies which use STS insights and2

See Ref. [78] for a discussion on the use of social robots from a policy
standpoint.
3
It is important to highlight that, unlike the healthcare sector, other sectors
have seen an upward trend in robot use, as evidenced by international researchon delivery robots [79] and advising robots [80].

4
For more studies on ethical concerns with socially assistive robots, see
Ref. [81].

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Y. Tamaki Welply and S. LechevalierTechnology in Society 77 (2024) 102559

describe the roles that technologies can play within these networks ofpeople and objects in care settings. Winance studied disabled persons in
the process of trying and selecting wheelchairs [45,46]. She analysed
relations between the disabled person and the wheelchair in theircontext and implied that care entails adjusting the interaction andbalancing the positions of each member of the collective, which has led
to her proposition that care is shared work. Similarly, Pols and Moser[47] investigated technologies for OA in need of care and looked into thesocial ties forged between them, by targeting relevant representations
such as the coldness of technology and the warmth of care as theresearch object. They have shown that technology is not necessarily
always cold and that some OA felt warmth from and affection fortechnology, particularly social robots. Together, these studies, by chal­lenging the idea of humans and non-humans in the different realms ofexistence in the way Latour did [48], show that the heterogeneous
character of relationality plays an important role in understanding
technologies in social settings.
However, recent studies have not been able to account for all aspectsof relationality in care involving technologies. Considering care as ‘anaffective state, a material vital doing, and an ethico-political obligation’[49], this study adopts a ‘critical care’ approach to study technology[50,51], by examining ordinary and often neglected aspects of the re­lationships such as positional and temporal aspects of the care rela­tionship from the perspective of a politics of care [52].5 Positional
characteristics of the care relationship have been studied [12,14,15] toexplain how a symbolic power asymmetry might arise between those
who need care and those who provide care. This positional asymmetry is
regarded as unavoidable in the practice of care since individuals who
respond to needs frequently have the option of whether or not to
respond to those needs, whereas those who require care frequently donot, according to Sen’s capacity perspective [53,54]. The temporalcomponent of care practice is seen as one of the most pressing challenges
in care practice. The reason for this is that care practice lasts (and it
should be) as long as the person in need is satisfied, whereas, in groupcare, activities such as eating, bathing, and some recreational activities
are completed on a tight timetable, resulting in relative temporal ten­sions [16]. In a ‘critical care’ approach, the ’affective state’ of care canbe investigated by the positional aspects of the relationships, while ’thematerial vital doing’ of care may be examined by taking account of thetemporal aspects of the relationships. Therefore, these two aspects
cannot be overlooked and are deemed heuristic for exploring the rela­tionship with and through robots.6
There are inspiring research examples in the field of social studies ofscience and technology that scrutinise care practices through a criticallens. Even though social robots show a certain degree of effectiveness insolving individual problems such as depression, interactions between
humans and robots may yield some unexpected situations, resulting insome resistance to technologies. For example, ethnographic work inJapan provides evidence that this is because proponents of the tech­
nology, including the government, anticipate robots to be omnipotent,
yet users in care settings perceive different realities of care from those of
the proponents and become even antagonistic to robots [55]. A socio­
logical work in France reveals that this is because, in the precisely
located practice of care, robots do not always behave as expected, andboth care recipients and carers must exert significant effort to engage inexchanges with the robot [56]. Overall, these studies highlight the needfor empirical knowledge to demonstrate the ambivalence of deploying
robots in care settings and a more nuanced discussion of what

technologies can do in social life.
3. Data and methodology
We began by evaluating two-year reports on a small humanoid robot
trial drafted by a staff member of the digital promotion department in alarge for-profit Japanese telecommunication company. The reports wereobtained from the staff member during the time we carried out partic­
ipatory observation of the usage and non-usage of robots in LTCF in the
Kanto region from April to July 2022. Contact with the robot provider
was made through an online visiting tour of LTCF that introduced caring
equipment and robots, organised in October 2021 as one of the public
initiatives undertaken by the Department of Social Welfare in the same
region. The aim of the document, according to the promotion staff
member, was to report the free trials of the robot to the head robot
development management team, and its production was a requirement
for acquiring a robot and implementing free trials for sales promotion:
there was no ‘checking or amendment of the report’. The opportunity tohave access to this information was highly valuable, and although suchprocedures may be difficult to replicate in the future, it would be unwise
to dismiss such reports without considering them as an insightful sourceof material. Besides, through the digital promotion staff member, we
obtained robot promotional material (one confidential, digital presen­tation material and one publicly available, printed material) and also
consulted the robot overview website and the robot instruction manual
website (which are both publicly available).
Trials were conducted before the pandemic, between April 2018 andMarch 2020, at 13 different facilities (9 day-service centres, 1 special
care home, 1 geriatric health facility, 1 fee-based care home and 1 de­mentia group home). A single trial session was held at 11 different fa­
cilities (8 outpatient day long-term cares, an LTCF, a group home for the
Table 1
List of eldercare facility participantsa.
Institution
code names

Description of care
homesService
operators

Date oftrial(YYYYMM-DD)

1

TY

Social welfare
corporation

2018-0406

2

DS01

3

DS02

4

DS03

5

DS04

6

GH

7

DS05

8

DS06

9

DS07

10

YRH

11

DS08

12

DS09-01 …
DS09-27 (27times)
RK-01 … RK13 (13 times)

LTCF covered by public
aid providing long-termcare to the OA (Tokuyo)
Outpatient day longterm care (day service)Outpatient day longterm care (day service)Outpatient day longterm care (day service)Outpatient day longterm care (day service)Group home for the OA
with dementia
Outpatient day longterm care (day service)Outpatient day longterm care (day service)Outpatient day longterm care (day service)
Fee-based LTCF (Yuryo
Rojin Home)
Outpatient day longterm care (day service)Outpatient day longterm care (day service)

Social welfare
corporation
Social welfare
corporation
Social welfare
corporation
Social welfare
corporation
Social welfare
corporation
Social welfare
corporation
MedicalcorporationFor-profit
corporation
MedicalcorporationFor-profit
corporationFor-profit
corporation

Long-term care healthfacility (Roken)

Medicalcorporation

2018-0418
2018-0424
2018-0516
2018-0615
2018-0710
2018-0718
2019-0128
2019-0214
2019-0308
2019-0325
2019-0328 … 202003-26
2019-1115 … 202002-12

13

5
For a discussion on ‘care studies’ in STS with several approaches other thanthe ‘critical care’ approach, see Ref. [82].
6
It should be noted that the temporalities mentioned in this study will be
related to micro-interactional care activities. See Refs. [50,55,83] for discus­
sions that examine another industrial or socio-technical inventive aspect of
temporality.

a
See the UN report on Japanese LTCF [84] for further information on thevarious categories of care homes and service operators in Japan (we also used
the terminology described in the report).

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Y. Tamaki Welply and S. LechevalierTechnology in Society 77 (2024) 102559

OA with dementia and a fee-based LTCF), 27 sessions at an outpatient
day long-term care, and 13 at a long-term care health facility (seeTable 1). The 50-page reports included practical descriptions such as
operational details of an approximately 1-h trial session and reactions of
the prospective users, as well as the digital promotion staff member’s
thoughts (i.e. positive and negative judgements). The content was not aformal report, but more of a memo-like record of the staff member’s own
struggles and mistakes. These records were processed by qualitative
content analysis and the corresponding code names were used for quo­tations from the reports (institution code followed by report elementcode). It should be noted that by the time this report was finished, noneof the LTCFs had adopted the robot. No change has taken place as of thetime of writing of this paper.
To supplement this data, two semi-structured interviews were con­ducted: one with the digital promotion staff member who granted accessto the reports and the other with two of the robot’s designers. The in­terviews took place in May 2020 and lasted 60 min. Since the robot
promotion company (Kanagawa, Japan) and the robot design company(Osaka, Japan) are different entities, interviews with the former wereconducted in the author’s office (Tokyo, Japan) and with the latter via
video call.
Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and converted to textual data.
A grounded theory approach [57] was used for these textual data as well
as for two-year trial reports to conduct inductive data analysis in orderfor themes to emerge from the data. In other words, the analysis was
carried out using a form of thematic coding to classify and categorise thedata.
In addition, to supplement the trial reports with triangulation forms,
participant observations were conducted at sites where the robot was
introduced with the help of the digital promotion staff member from
April to July 2022. Four stints of participant observation were con­ducted, totalling 6 h in length. Two of them were performed at thementioned facilities in the reports: the day-service centre and the geri­
atric health facility. We conducted the observation in the presence of thedigital promotion staff member. During observation, we had informal
conversations with care workers about the adoption of a robot but did
not manage to gather from care recipients their perceptions of theinteraction with robots. The authors translated trial reports, interview
transcription and fieldnotes from Japanese to English.
In order to use the company’s internal reports as research material, it
was necessary to anonymise the robot, the digital promotion staff
member and long-term care facilities. Thus, publications cannot bedirectly cited or referred to, though summaries will be provided. The
names of the robot, Kuro and of the promotion staff member, Ken, arepseudonyms. All quoted statements were accompanied by theirsources.7

indeed difficult’ [the printed material]. As stated in the ‘script’, thismight be required in order to ‘realise a completely new, people-centred
communication service’ [the robotic company website].
Two significant themes emerged from the data on the robot sup­plier’s side. First, from the robotic company’s online materials, it isapparent that technologies, in their own right, provide possible answers
to societal problems. The robot Kuro, a ‘table-top size’ that ‘enables
natural dialogue using words, gestures, and hand gestures’, wasdesigned with the goal of ‘realising a society where people and robots
can fully coexist’ [the robotic company’s website], which is essentially
identical to the strategy outlined in the Japanese government’s 5th Basic
Plan, dubbed Society 5.0 [3]. The script here projects that robots may
behave and act like persons to assist in resolving interpersonal problems.
Furthermore, as the following interview with a robot designer demon­
strates, efforts and research have been carried out with the assumptionthat robots will be a tool that can be used in care settings, in other words,
they can play an active role. In the interview, the robot designer said:(My company and the company under the same group as the com­pany Ken works for) initially started a joint research project toinvestigate whether it (a robot) could be used in the field of care anddeveloped the robot and its additional application service dedicatedto assisting with recreational activities in LTCF. [interview]
The script here shows the environment where the robot is assumed tobehave as an autonomous entity. The script portrays an ideal relation­
ship in which the human gets assistance from the robot, but it does notcover, for example, the relationship in which the human prepares therobot for operation or sets the robot’s surroundings, which will be dis­cussed later. A human-robot social bond envisioned in the script is one
where the robot can act autonomously and assist the human in any
environment.
The second type of relationship in the script is focused on theimplementation of a collective endeavour such as recreation or reha­bilitation. It is of a type that disregards the conditions of implementa­
tion, particularly the situation of the participants. Strong evidence of theassumption of the habitual, if not mechanical, nature of recreationaltime in institutional eldercare was found when the script emphasises therobot’s automated process of interaction with humans. It is clear fromthe following excerpt that recreation is envisioned in the scripts as aunilateral action by the recreation executor. Data from the printed
promotional brochure show that:(Kuro will) automatically conduct these [recreational] activities (incare settings) by employing incorporated cameras, microphones,
speakers, and networking functions, as well as being highly inte­
grated with IoT devices, cloud AI, and other devices. The service
content includes exercise sessions, brain training, music, reminis­
cences, and games. [printed material]

4. Findings

Certainly, the use of robot-assisted recreation has a relatively posi­tive impact on recreation participants. This is clear from an ’improve­
ment in the residents’ positive attitude towards interaction with others’,
according to findings of an empirical test conducted by a university
professor [confidential digital material]. This is also supported byanother trial, conducted from August to October 2015 by the company,
which have brought about some positive evaluations of the robot fromprospective users of 12 care professionals, resulting in three trans­
formations in actual scenes of care:

4.1. Relationship between robots and care actors, ‘prescribed’ in thedesignThe robot is intended to help care professionals with light exercise
and recreational activities and must be connected to the Internet, a settop box, and a TV screen that displays activity materials such as still
images and recorded video. In the robot’s ‘script’, the aims of encour­aging a group of care service users (usually at least four or more) to
conduct light physical activities and mental activities were transcribed
into the robot’s action such as gesticulating, talking loudly and shifting
attention in various directions. In particular, Kuro is configured to utter
words in line with the participant’s feelings, such as ‘it feels good,’ orwords that are concerned about the participant’s burden, such as ‘it’s

reducing the burden (of recreational activity preparation) (for care
professionals), helping to solve the care staff shortage (for care fa­
cility directors), and improving satisfaction (for care recipients).
[printed material]
However, in a setting where robots perform these recreational ac­
tivities ’alone’ and ’automatically’, by ‘taking the place of staff’[confidential digital material], it is assumed that recreation is a routine,
an act that is repeated in institutional care, without taking into account7
A swift check was conducted, and no robot named Kuro was identified,therefore any reference to a robot called Kuro is accidental.

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Y. Tamaki Welply and S. LechevalierTechnology in Society 77 (2024) 102559

the psychological and physical well-being of the resident who is theparticipant of the recreational activities. Only the person in charge ofdelivering the recreation is present in the script, rendering residents
somewhat invisible.

In establishing connections among seemingly indifferent partici­
pants, the gaze of Kuro and of the residents was also decisive during theobservation. Kuro tried to engage in recreational activities in the same
way that a care professional would, by looking around at the people who
were closer to it. This was possible because Kuro was outfitted with acamera and speakers, which allowed it to perceive the current situation
around it in a similar way that human eyes and ears do. The following is
an excerpt from the field notes during participant observations in April
2022.

4.2. Partial ‘performance’ of the script in care setting: limitations‘described’ throughout the trial
4.2.1. Harmonious but distant relation between the robot and recreation
participants
The theme of harmony and a sense of unity recurred in Ken’s reportand one element to establish harmonious relations was Kuro’s sound.
This sense of unity might be simple to form, but it was evident from thereports that it was also easy to be disturbed, depending on the vocal
sound of the ones who are spearheading the construction of together­ness. In two reports (trials done in April and May 2018), care pro­fessionals mentioned problems with Kuro’s voice and associatedtelevision sounds which were too low to convey messages as issues tosolve.

Kuro, connected via a wireless connection to the TV screen, gave theimpression that it was paying attention to its surroundings by turning
its head to participants, in line with what a human instructor on a TV
screen was performing. [field notes]
It was apparent from the observation that although Kuro tried to lookat the people around it, the participants did not always look at the robot
or make eye contact with it and the majority of the participants’ eyes
were, in fact, placed on the TV screen rather than the robot.8 The gaze of
Kuro was not met by the participants’ gaze, which was difficult to
describe as an interactional, reciprocal, bi-directional gaze. It was un­
clear whether this was due to the small size of the robot or the fact thatthe explanations of the exercises to be performed were provided by thevideo on the TV screen.

It would be better if it [Kuro] were mobile, because [as it is] it would
only reach about 10 participants around it. Because there are 20–30
people, in the day service [it] is difficult to implement [it]. Is it
possible to use multiple robots at once? DS03-F38

4.2.2. Pleasant but one-way communication between the robot and carerecipients
The theme of detachment was also found during the observation.
Certainly, some phrases mentioned above were heard from Kuro andthey were unquestionably meant to share emotions and make the robot
more pleasant and approachable. Nonetheless, neither OA facing theloss of autonomy nor care professionals responded to the words Kurouttered. The following is an excerpt from the field notes during theparticipant observation.

The sound volume/range is difficult to hear = low volume DS03-F39.
Can it be used in multiple locations? TY01-F02
These points highlight how difficult it is for humans to adapt to thelow volume of the robot, particularly in spaces where large groups ofpeople spend time together, such as care settings. It also emphasises how
difficult it is for a robot to adapt to humans because it requires additional
equipment (for example speakers, as Ken recognised [DS01-F15]) andmust overcome numerous obstacles, such as material connections, as
discussed later. Taken together, even something as trivial as the volume
of a machine appears to play a vital impact in the development ofpleasant interactions that foster harmonious relations and a sense of
togetherness, in institutional eldercare.
Indifference, then, can be viewed as a detriment to establishing a
sense of unity. Ken was particularly interested in the robot’s failure to
conduct the recreational activities according to the programme andgenerate a ‘harmonious relationship’ between the participants, that is, acondition in which the participants perform the activities to the same
degree. There were situations among the participants without excite­
ment or indication of heightened mood and the word ‘indifferently’ wasoften used in Ken’s reports [DS01-F12, DS03-E21, F23, F24, E35, DS04F56, GH-E73, D79]:

To get the rhythm going, the robot said ‘one, two, one, two’. Because
no one is speaking, its somewhat high-pitched, infantile voice stands
out in the room. [field notes]
One reason for this may be that Kuro’s facial expressions remained
unchanged even when Kuro expressed emotions verbally. Kuro wasdescribed in the promotional material as accompanying the recreational
activities through voice and words, but because of its one-way
communication, it was unclear how much the prospective users would
perceive that they were being accompanied (either by someone or bysomething).
Ordinary conversations are frequently limited in group care facilities
among residents or between residents and care professionals, as in
hospitals and clinics. The following quotations from the reports show
expectations around the role robots play in communication. Ken even
hoped that Kuro’s utterances would spark a conversation. It is apparent
from these quotations that, if communication is viewed as a means ofexpressing emotions and relating to each other, an instrument expand­ing communication options is hoped for.

If (we) do not get a good start, a rec [ recreational activity] is done
indifferently. DS03F28
This usage underlines the fact that it was regarded as beneficial to do
activities together, with everyone who shared Kuro’s presence partici­
pating. Furthermore, indifference can cause some people to become
detached from recreational time, bringing about a discordant state in theroom. Ken wrote down situations where no prospective users, especiallyno resident, responded in their interaction with Kuro. Ken was keenly
aware of the reactions of those around Kuro, as well as no reactions ofthem which was deemed undesirable by Ken. This implies that partici­
pating in recreational activities indifferently, such as when each person
behaves independently or does not respond to any proposed movement,
is deemed to limit the synchronisation of each participant’s activity thatencourages togetherness and constitutes detached and distant relations.
(There are) about 2–3 people sleeping, although (they are) asymp­
tomatic (service users of dementia). DS04-F49

Next time, too, [if we can have] enough time for conversation, [it]will make it [Kuro] more approachable DS03-G30
Kuro needs to be able to move around and interact with each person,and everyone should be encouraged to respond during the rec [rec­reational activities] DS04-D42
Instead of Kuro indifferently presenting and answering questions,[Kuro] should be used as a starting point for establishing a dialogue(for example, what does this Chinese character mean? Tuna is the(There are) three people who appear to have dementia, one of whom
is irritated by her leg pain, are unresponsive. YRH-F154

8
It was a female instructor on the screen who explained exercises showing
actual body and hand gestures.

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Y. Tamaki Welply and S. LechevalierTechnology in Society 77 (2024) 102559

answer. Do you enjoy tuna? Do you like sushi? Do you enjoy fishing?
[We should] enjoy various conversations while making the most of
the internet. DS04- D56,

These links are usually established in material terms, yet they are often
considered problematic in specific situations.
While in most care settings, wheelchairs, walkers, and canes arewidespread, technical objects that consume energy and must be
recharged do not prevail, even though power plugs and cords arecommonplace in our daily activities as a result of technologicaladvancement and diffusion (such as personal mobile phones). Japaneseeldercare homes usually have at least one large-screen TV for enter­tainment, but adopting some other technical device such as a robot
appears quite a different matter and tricky. It is apparent from theobservation that the placement of a robot could affect care relationships
in which people go often from place to place, probably because a robot
could be placed in the middle of the space while a TV set usually cannot.
In the trial report, a care facility employee raised the following questions
after trial sessions carried out in March 2019.

F56
Spoken exchanges are usually based on verbal and mutual relations.
However, according to the report as well as the participant observation,
the robot struggled to establish them with humans. Both Ken and pro­
spective users believed that a conversation with Kuro, which is claimed
to be a communication robot, would be effortless, probably consideringthe ’prescribed’ relations outlined in 4.1. A situation was documented inwhich a care professional as a prospective user cited the difficulty ofholding a conversation as one of the barriers to adopting Kuro, which
was also understood and shared by Ken.
The conversation [with Kuro] was not smooth; when users spoke
directly to Kuro, it did not receive an answer, and the dialogue wasconducted through the robot operator [Ken].

The power outlet is in the way, and the feet [of caregivers] could get
mixed up with it, so it would be better if we could move the robot
using storage batteries (similar views were expressed at other facil­
ities). DS08–23, F23[Ken’s response] As previously stated, Kuro found it difficult to
respond humanly, and it usually responds when the eyes are blue;
improvements are planned in the near future to enable seamlessdialogue. DS04-F609

Technical issues, which may be considered minor in the first step,
can be perceived as a serious problem. When the person in charge of
caregiving breaks off the relationship with the person in need of care andbegins preparing to use the technology, it has an impact on the operationof activities in care homes, particularly when bathing, eating, and otheractivities take place at set times. Trial reports in June 2018 and January
2019 clearly showed the reasons for the difficulty of adopting the robot
in a day-service centre.

This quotation illustrates that the difficulty of establishing verbal
and reciprocal relations between the robot and the human lies in the factthat the human must speak when Kuro’s eyes are blue and modify his or
her way of talking in order for the robot to understand. The distinction
between such an attentional person and a person who requires long-termcare is significant because the latter frequently has communicationdifficulties, particularly verbal communication due to hearing impair­ment. Since it was impossible for the robot to be adapted to the inter­locutor, it was nearly impossible for the robot to become an interlocutor.
The robot sought out familiar and everyday talks with residents, butinstead, there was one-way engagement from either side.

The time it took to start the rec [recreational activities], the impact
on work, and the fact that care is [provided] in time slots, and rec[recreational activities], meals, bathing, and so on [are] arranged, so
the inability [for the robot] to start on time is a concern. DS-04, F58(Kuro’s) recreation was occasionally cancelled because images could
not be displayed on a TV set (it [the TV] has an HDMI port, but data
distribution was not possible) DS06-F132.

4.2.3. Mechanical and functional connections between the robot and care
professionals
One of the mechanical aspects of robots that automate recreational
activities is that they follow a programme, making it almost impossible
for them to adapt to the target audience. The duration of physical andcognitive activity for each resident is highlighted as problematic in thereports.
The following report quote from Ken’s point of view in May 2018refers to how long people need to practise physical exercises.

5. Discussion
So far, we have displayed findings organised according to the re­lationships ‘prescribed’ in the design and ‘described’ throughout thetrial, through the methodological concept of ‘script’ [17–19]. As
mentioned in the theoretical background, relationality, in particular
positional asymmetry and temporal tensions, are crucial themes in thestudies of robots that adopt a ‘critical care’ approach [12,49,52]. Basedon this, the following section addresses the initial research questions, i.e.
how social robots shape social relations of care and how social robots
affect social relations between care professionals, care recipients androbots, by focusing on positional and temporal aspects of therelationships.

[What we accomplished] was not merely a video recreation, but atrial of Kuro’s presence (Kuro’s unique expression and space, as wellas its realization). However, continuing for more than 30 minutes
may be exhausting … DS03-F27
In addition, not taking into consideration the rhythm of a person’s
movement was also a concern. Both Kuro (with its dedicated service to
OA facing the loss of autonomy) and the instructor on the TV screen
were supposed to target them in LTCF, but there were still participants
who moved their bodies at a different, slower pace than the robot andthe instructor. Ken wrote in the report in replying to a care professional’scomments on the difficultness of the exercises in the recreation:

5.1. Relationship through positional aspects
First, this study showed that the robot’s script included establishinginteractions in care settings as a dialogue partner and a mood enhancer
to create a harmonious relationship and a sense of unity. Even though
the robot also unintentionally produced distance which was considered
uncomfortable by Ken, care recipients as well as care professionals
seemed to embrace the robot as a partner. A possible explanation for thismight be that recreational time in institutional care is related to thenotion of ‘activity’ and ‘participation’ rather than ‘body function andstructure’ as the health condition suggested in the International Classi­
fication of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) by World HealthOrganization [58]. This is in line with Pols and Moser’s findings thatolder people sometimes have positive feelings towards robots [47]. The
observed non-refusal of both the caregiver and the care recipient may be(A)s long as we take into account previous trials, people with de­mentia cannot keep up with the exercises; it would be beneficial if
the pace of the exercises could be slowed. DS04-F64
Robots are frequently connected to a variety of other technologicalobjects. Although they can perform multiple roles and simulate humanbehaviour, they need physical and technical connections to function.

9
Ken said in the interview in May 2022 that no improvement were
implemented.

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Y. Tamaki Welply and S. LechevalierTechnology in Society 77 (2024) 102559

accounted for by the symbolic positional asymmetry that inevitably
exists between caregivers and care recipients, as noted by care ethicists[59], because accepting the robot as a partner may reduce the degree of
positional asymmetry for both parties by placing them in the same po­sition relative to the robot.
A second important finding is that everyone in the scene, including
residents and caregivers, was paying attention to the robot. Although
positioned as an assistant to the instructor on the TV screen, Kuro, as aknowledgeable actor, takes a central rather than peripheral position
during light exercise. The nature of knowledge ranged from cognitive
quizzes or physical exercises, popular songs of yore, to historical events(such as the Tokyo Olympics in 1964) that many people were familiarwith. This encyclopaedic knowledge favoured the robot’s central posi­tion as a mood enhancer, maybe leading to peaceful and pleasant re­lationships with actors in the scene of eldercare facilities.
At first glance, the presence of this apparent ‘helpful’ robot to
conduct collective activities seems to contradict Weber’s study [60],which states that robots are usually designed to look helpless so thatthey are easily accepted. Even though the robot does not look like one ofthose artefacts ‘which are gender-stereotyped as helpless women’ [60],this robot indeed looks somewhat ‘helpless’. While this robot looks
genderless like some models shown by Schiebinger et al. [61], it seems
to have been inspired by an infant because of its small size and its
high-pitched voice. The present study went a step further, revealing that,
despite its rather ‘helpless’ appearance, a helpful presence was assumed
given how the robot was used and therefore when the robot was placedin front of the group of residents and care professionals, it became theparticipants’ focal point. Care ethicists have recognised a similar posi­tional asymmetry that can be explained by placing the care receiver andcarer in a position that is either symbolically inferior or superior, withthe former frequently in a dependent state [59]. It should be highlighted
that our study has identified the symbolic and actual positions of thecentre and the peripheral, with the former, the robot in our study,
frequently drawing attention from the latter.

through what Davis refers to as ‘process time,’ [16] or ‘kairological’time, a temporal aspect that is emphasised in care practices [69].
Certainly, it is indeed possible for the robot to encourage the person tospend less linear, more subjective time flow, as evidenced by the finding
where participants not only listened to Kuro’s chat about their youth but
also were prompted to engage in conversation around it, seemingly
losing track of time via the act of reminiscence. Kuro’s programmed chatlasted only a few minutes, but the dialogues leading up to the narrativeof each participant began suddenly and were terminated somehow, withno one noticing how long it lasted. Despite this, it should be noted thatthe robot simply produced the ‘trigger’ that gave rise to the relationshipthrough process time, and the robot played a minor role on its own inthis relationship. This conflictual temporalities between the robot’s
linear and regular rhythm and the residents’ personal rhythm seem to beconsistent with the idea of the difficulties in ‘temporal alignment’ [50]in socio-technical innovation and the idea of which rhythms adjust towhich (and whose rhythms to whose) [72].
Furthermore, this study showed another nature of time in institu­
tional care that flows through the rigorous schedule of carrying out
various, often physical, activities as suggested by the idea of measurable
and objective time flow in collective care [16,55].10 The second condi­tion of insufficient preparation for the robot was deemed problematic
probably because the time required to make the robot perform consistedof, paradoxically, not straightforward, clear-cut time but compoundprocess time. This seems especially true for care professionals, because
of several back-and-forth steps to follow, which disrupted the linear timeof institutional care practice composed of several varied process time
related to each care act. One might propose that if there were no issues
with the robot’s preparation, there would exist a certain affinity in termsof time flow between institutional long-term care considered routine andthe robot’s operations. However, this would be possible on the condition
that someone among care actors is ready to prepare, arrange andmanage the connection with the robot or to materially ‘take care of’robots [56,73], so that these actions do not conflict with the relationshipwith the care receiver established in the process time.

5.2. Relationship in temporal aspects, focusing on activities

5.3. Social relations and practices of care, affected by social robots, frompositional and temporal aspects

The study found that the robot established a one-directional rela­tionship with care recipients by not adapting the duration and speed ofthe exercises to the OA, causing problematic situations. Besides, therobot’s script brought about functional relations with care professionals
and the robot preparations such as the robot’s material connections also
raised issues by influencing the time flow of the LTCF. The findings
confirm that providing care is first of all extremely context-dependent
activity [62–64]. Both problematic situations might not have beenviewed as such if the robot had gathered information about its own
context, specifically for whom [65] or where and with whom it was
doing what [66], rather than just acting on its own, based on its pro­gramme. It is all the more striking given that the definition of a robot
often refers to an intelligent mechanical system ‘with three technologies:
a sensor, an intelligence/control system, and a driving system’ [67], androbots can be ‘viewed as socially helpful machines with three functionsof ‘feeling, thinking, and moving’’ respectively [68].
These situations considered problematic support the view that thetime running through care practices is primarily subjective in nature andcannot be measured, rather than objective time flow that can bemeasured [16,55,69]. This is especially because OA in need of care in
LTCF can also be seen as an entity that, depending on the situation, canexperience a potentially very destabilising physical and cognitive con­dition, at a great, particular pace [70,71]. Thus, the reason why theformer situation of the robot’s inability to adapt was deemed problem­
atic may be explained by the fact that the temporal dimension of therobot dialogue was firmly based on objective and linear time. It wasdifficult for the robot to reply depending on the time it takes for eachresident who could sometimes go through several phases of communi­
cation. Of course, the robot might also foster this type of interaction

Even though these findings may be underpinned by the (constructed)
robot-friendly nature of Japanese culture [74] and therefore require
careful interpretation, it can be deduced from this that robots develop
relationships through positional and temporal elements of the re­lationships (Fig. 1). On the one hand, the robot was configured toalternate between standing in the centre and aiming for an equal posi­tion as a dialogue partner. The robot was not designed to be placed in aclear, observable position in a relationship. It was ‘inscribed’ into therobot to build a relationship by freely adjusting the robot’s position
physically and symbolically.
On the other hand, it was also in the robot’s script to develop re­lationships in the execution of recreation and communication activities
through a relatively fast pace and regular rhythm. Certainly, the robot
was configured to occasionally provide some opportunities to createsocial bonds between care professionals and care recipients throughslow and leisurely moments. However, the robot rarely generated
connectedness through the subjective and unpredictable rhythm in therecreational activities aimed at meeting the residents’ sociopsychological requirements.
It may come as a surprise that when care professionals were to set up
the robot for its function, they were unable to do so in a smooth time
10
This is also consistent with the view that modern labour stresses measurable
time and that such time is a central indicator of productivity that links labour(action) and workers (people), with productivity being the dominant argument
for technology inclusion in care settings [85].

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Y. Tamaki Welply and S. LechevalierTechnology in Society 77 (2024) 102559

Fig. 1. Two-axis analysis of positionality and temporality (and its degree).

scale. In order to understand human relationships with social robots ineldercare homes, we have combined a ‘script’ approach and a ‘criticalcare’ one. Based on content analysis of a unique set of reports on trials ofa social robot in multiple care facilities in Japan from 2018 to 2020, as
well as interviews with stakeholders and ethnographic observations
conducted in 2022, we have tried to answer two questions: 1) how dosocial robots shape social relations of care? 2) how do social robots affectsocial relations between care professionals, care recipients and robots?
By analysing relationships ‘prescribed’ in the design and ‘described’
throughout the trial and emphasising the positional and temporal as­
pects of the care relation, we have obtained the following major result:while robots are easier to adjust in terms of positionality because theirposition is not defined, embedded clock time flow in the robot was
objective and linear, indicating that it was difficult to adjust in terms of
temporality.
However, the findings in this study are subject to some limitations.
First, the current study has mainly tackled the positional and temporal
aspects of the relationships focused on the robot, instead of care service
providers or recipients via the robot. It can only be speculated that, as
we briefly mentioned in the Discussion section, the robot’s intervention
in conversation engagement may have sometimes increased the sense of
togetherness and solidarity in less asymmetrical relationships between
care providers and recipients as well as in less objective time flow.
Second, we have not sufficiently examined how power relation andposition are related to temporality in the case of technologies, as studies
in other settings identified the link between the temporal character ofactions and power in relationships [76].11 Third, given that care is aselective form of attention, we could have addressed whether the social

flow, and therefore constant and regular temporal elements in the re­lationships between the robot and the care professional were notobserved. However, in this situation, the robot occupied the position of
being ’cared for’ by the care professionals, establishing a relationshipwith numerous stages of adjusting, connecting and modifying. Thisseemed to necessitate almost a course of action for the care professional,
who currently lacks specialised expertise and experiential knowledge
compared to robot providers, meaning less linear time flow but more
processual time flow. Because an artefact’s processual preparation time
was only marginally associated with one fragment of care procedures,care professionals were unable to make room for it among other process
time flow of personal physical care especially. Although care practices
are already ‘problematic because it involves social interactions that
contain the potential for conflict’ [75], this care arrangement with therobot produced even more conflictual time flow in collective eldercare,due to the excessively steady rhythm of the activity and the irregular andunfamiliar time flow of the robot’s maintenance.
Based on these findings, it seems obvious that the robot’s incorpo­
ration into care settings has caused even more difficulties in the tem­poral aspects of the relationships. As a result, it is possible to hypothesisethat the conditions for a robot’s admission into this seemingly
straightforward but entangled care environment include not only
considering the relationality of care but also a malleable positional
relationship and a less observable and less predictable temporal
relationship.
6. Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to contribute to the ongoing research
field on the use of socially assistive robots in eldercare settings. We haveargued that it is fruitful to look at the relationships between OA, theircaregivers and robots, by contrast to studies that focus on the individual11
One classic study examining people in dominant positions and their tem­poralities is that of Bourdieu [86].

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Y. Tamaki Welply and S. LechevalierTechnology in Society 77 (2024) 102559

relations enacted by the robot cause some people or things to be
excluded [34,52], and if so, who and what things are excluded. Still, thispaper did not have the space to explore this topic.
Examining positional and temporal aspects of the relationships be­
tween OA in need of care, their care provider, and the robot will help
identify the nature of their relationship and how it is affected by the
inclusion of robots. This should help to explain why robots are often
regarded favourably in studies at individual levels but not rated as suchat the level of social groups, in this case, care setting actors. A future
study investigating the interaction between OA in need of care and ro­bots striving to care, by considering these actors as relational entities
and focusing on their positionality and temporality in relationships,
would be insightful to explain the underutilization of, and consequent
resistance, to technologies.

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CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yuko Tamaki Welply: Writing – review & editing, Writing – originaldraft, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization.
Sébastien Lechevalier: Writing – review & editing, Writing – originaldraft, Methodology, Conceptualization.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest relating to this study.
Data availability
The authors do not have permission to share data.
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