Short abstract:

We aim to transform shopping practices by building a robot that rejects consumer's shopping choices. Based on our insights from lab-experiments with the robot and video tours of everyday shopping trips, we show how STS can contribute to the making and doing of sustainable transformation in robotics.

Long abstract:

Current consumption technologies mainly support capitalistic ideologies of economic growth and as such seem to hinder more responsible consumption (FN global goals), as for example algorithms and apps that not only help to find a certain product, but also inform about other products for purchase, or current research on service robots that aim to capture and hold the customers attention for sales interaction. How can we change these socio-material practices with the aim for a ‘social -- more sustainable -- good’?

This talk approaches consumption as socio-material practice constructed in the interplay of images of e.g. consumption and sustainability, skills of e.g. doing grocery shopping and food consumption, and materials, e.g. assistive apps (Shove & Pantzar 2005). In the tradition of Suchman’s work (2007) we aim to reconfigure human machine assembles in shopping practices starting by building a robot that negotiates and rejects participants shopping choices (Rehm et al 2024). Therefore, we engage in lab- and ‘in the wild’ experiments with the shopping robot and engaged in collaborative and explorative video tours (Pink 2013) with participants from Denmark to understand their everyday shopping practices. Based on our insights and experiences from this research, this talk discusses how STS can contribute not only to develop a critical perspective on advancing technologies (such as social robots and AI) but also engage in the making and doing of (hopefully more sustainable) transformation.