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Paper short abstract

Animal-shaped social robots are increasingly introduced in elder care to address loneliness and staff shortages. Drawing on ethnography in Dutch nursing homes, this paper examines how these robots are adopted and resisted, revealing tensions and competing imaginaries of good care.

Paper long abstract

In the Netherlands, as elswhere around the world, aging populations place increasing pressure on health and long-term care systems, prompting policymakers to pursue technological innovations to support care provision. Among these innovations are social robots—devices designed to engage users through social interaction and companionship. In elder care, animal-shaped robots are often introduced to alleviate loneliness and reduce caregiver workload. Yet their integration into care practices remains contested. Care professionals and residents frequently perceive such technologies as “cold” or incompatible with the relational and moral dimensions of care.

This paper examines how animal-shaped social robots are negotiated, adopted, and resisted in everyday care practices in Dutch nursing homes. Drawing on ongoing ethnographic research, it explores how these robots become part of the socio-material arrangements of care, shaping interactions between residents, caregivers, and institutional infrastructures. Rather than viewing resistance as a barrier to innovation, the paper analyzes moments of hesitation, critique, and refusal as practices through which actors articulate competing practices and imaginaries of good care.

By foregrounding these tensions, the study contributes to STS and care scholarship that understands care as a situated practice of continual tinkering with values, technologies, and responsibilities. Encounters with social robots open debates about the boundaries of human and technological care, the moral expectations of caregiving, and the organization of future care infrastructures. In doing so, the paper reflects on how ethnographic insights into everyday care practices can inform more reflexive and inclusive approaches to designing and governing technological futures of care.