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Short abstract

Based on a study of two welfare technologies widely introduced in Danish long-term care, robot vacuum cleaners and virtual homecare visits, we explore how values of good care are negotiated, and how frictions related to homeliness, loneliness and dignity are evoked.

Long abstract

For more than a decade, ’Welfare technologies’ have been positioned as a key ‘solution’ in Danish policymaking addressing the crisis of care in the eldercare sector. Expectations from national and local policymakers are high, forming a very optimistic ‘sociotechnical imaginary’ of a withdrawn digitalized eldercare sector, providing both better and more efficient care for a growing population of older persons, and emphasizing ideals of freedom and dignity. However, this imaginary unfolds very differently in practise, evoking frictions and debates related to questions of homeliness, loneliness and dignity.

Based on a study of public discourse on two different welfare technologies, robot vacuum cleaners and virtual homecare visits, supplemented by field studies of long-term care, this paper explores how values and conceptions of good care are negotiated in relation to these two technologies. Informed by Jeannette Pols’ empirical ethics and incorporating aesthetic dimensions that illuminate material, performative, and discursive aspects, we argue that the withdrawal of physical care interactions through these technologies raises not only moral concerns but also aesthetic conflicts over what constitutes a good life. Yet the two technologies are received and portrayed very differently. Robot vacuum cleaners provoke widespread controversy and fundamentally alter how long-term care is spatially and socially organized. Virtual homecare visits, in contrast, are seen as a more acceptable reorganization of care services, and by some even portrayed as a service improvement. Yet virtual homecare visits also introduce profound transformations, changing notions of care presence and interaction through digital screens.