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Short abstract

The study explores how expectations around assistive technologies in nursing homes are enacted through theatre-based workshops. Caregivers and managers perform future scenarios, generating optimistic and dystopian “choreographies” shaped by collective socio-material practices.

Long abstract

Within the sociology of expectations, concepts such as socio-technical imaginaries have shown how expectations are rhetorically constructed, circulated, and stabilized, shaping innovation trajectories. At the same time, research has emphasized that expectations are not limited to discourse but also materialize in actions, bodies, artefacts, and technological devices (Borup et al., 2006). Building on this view, our presentation examines the socio-material practices through which expectations are enacted and heterogeneous elements are assembled into meaningful configurations (Gherardi, 2016).

We draw on findings from four participatory theatre-based design workshops conducted in nursing homes that have implemented assistive technologies, particularly telemonitoring systems and robotic solutions. Through dramaturgical techniques and role-playing, caregivers and facility managers were invited to imagine alternative futures characterized by prospective versions of existing technologies. These workshops generated socio-material practices in which participants aligned with future-oriented narratives, enacted embodied simulations of care interactions, and produced visual representations of imagined innovations.

We interpret the resulting heterogeneous assemblages as “choreographies” in which human and non-human performances “gear together” (Andrew Pickering, 2022), following collectively defined alternative courses of action. Some choreographies articulated optimistic futures, where technologies support caregivers’ work and enhance residents’ quality of life. Others expressed dystopian visions, depicting scenarios in which machines dominate care practices and foster depersonalized assistance.

We conclude by reflecting on the methodological and empirical contributions of STS-inspired theatre-based workshops to the study of expectations, outlining future research directions on the embodied and performative production of expectations through socio-material engagement.