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Paper short abstract

Based on fieldwork and interviews in Tokyo’s OriHime café, I explore how avatar robots mediate sociality for homebound individuals. I examine how remote work through avatar robots creates belonging and agency, while showing that emancipatory potential depends on integration into social practices.

Paper long abstract

People who struggle to leave their homes due to disability or chronic illness often face limited opportunities to connect with society. Their social contacts primarily consist of family members, caregivers, and medical professionals, whereas opportunities to shape daily routines, build social networks, and plan for the future remain constrained. While limited social contact does not necessarily result in loneliness, experiencing loneliness is often tied to a sense of not contributing to society, feeling unneeded, or lacking future prospects.

In Japan, the Ory Laboratory introduced an avatar robot, OriHime, in 2012 to address the social isolation and loneliness of homebound individuals. Unlike social companion robots, this remotely controlled device functions as an alter ego, connecting homebound people with society and bridging physical distance. Initially, OriHime was used primarily by people with disabilities and chronic illnesses to spend time with family and friends, or by hospitalized students to attend school and stay connected with peers. In 2021, the Ory Laboratory opened a café in Tokyo where adults who face difficulties leaving home for various reasons can work remotely and serve customers through OriHime.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the café and interviews with individuals who work through OriHime, I examine how the avatar robot mediates sociality. Through my interlocutors’ perspectives on work and social participation, I explore how avatar robots create new opportunities for belonging and contributing to society, expand social worlds, enable or restore agency, and foster a more positive outlook toward the future. At the same time, I demonstrate that these positive experiences depend heavily on how avatar robots are integrated into everyday social practices, highlighting that the emancipatory potential of avatar robots can be undermined when they are deployed within digital capitalist logics of productivity and extraction.