Welfare technologies in Finland: An ethico-politics of hype, hope and experimentation

In the past decade, the Finnish government has been eager to enable and support the development, implementation and growing business of automation, robotics and artificial intelligence—that is, welfare technologies in elderly care services. In these visions, technologies offer an intervention to increase health and wellbeing while also being an economic commodity to generate profit. Therefore, expectations towards welfare technologies show politics with high optimism, in which simultaneous expectations of good health, smooth services, a growing economy and a thriving welfare state are fostered. This dissertation delves into a problem in which care politics raise high expectations of technology while catering to the needs of the ageing population. My main research question is as follows: How are the high expectations related to the technology realised in care practices, and what are the ethico-political implications? This dissertation consists of four articles that exemplify the different dimensions of realising these expectations. The dissertation is theoretically based on multiple perspectives from science and technology studies. My theoretical framework enables a focus on ethico-political practices and expectations, offers a symmetrical approach to care and technology and provides a critical viewpoint to the technological promises laid in contemporary care politics. I use multi-sited ethnography as a methodology. The research materials consist of documents, observations and interviews. The focus of the empirical materials is on social robots and telecare technology—that is, robots designed to provide companionship and assistance and surveillance technologies for secure care. I read the different research materials through the sociology of translations, which emphasises that the manner in which expectations are fulfilled concerns the adaptation and transformation of different actors and their aspirations. This dissertation advances the theoretical and empirical understanding of the welfare technology phenomenon. My main argument is that expectations related to welfare technologies in Finland are realised in actual care practices through negotiations between the regimes of hype and hope. The regime of hype captures the health and social policy side of the welfare technology phenomenon, while the regime of hope mainly concerns institutional care. Hype creates, collects and circulates optimistic expectations, while hope enables living with the uncertainty that comes with technology’s material agency. With technology comes the possibility of disruption, which intervenes with care relations and, paradoxically, enables them by offering possibilities for creativity. Experimentation is central to both regimes. While experimentation in the regime of hype aims at fulfilling optimistic expectations, experimentation in the regime of hope is obligatory to secure care. Experimentation in practice makes the wellbeing of individuals and the state commensurate, transforming disappointments into achievements and technological possibilities into necessities. Both regimes value ambivalence and uncertainty due to their shared focus on experimentation.----- Tarkastelen sosiologian alaan kuuluvassa väitöskirjassa iäkkäiden hoivatyöhön suunnattuihin hyvinvointiteknologioihin liittyviä odotuksia sekä niiden eettis-poliittisia vaikutuksia. Väitöskirja koostuu neljästä vertaisarvioidusta tutkimusartikkelista ja yhteenvetoluvusta. Kaksi artikkeleista on julkaistu kansainvälisissä ja kaksi kotimaisissa lehdissä. Tutkimus paikantuu suomalaisen hyvinvointivaltion ja sen hoivapalvelujen murroskohtaan, jossa riittämättömiin hoivaresursseihin haetaan poliittista ratkaisua automaatiosta, tekoälystä ja robotiikasta. Hyvinvointiteknologian käsite viittaa pohjoismaisten hyvinvointivaltioiden pyrkimyksiin vastata ikääntyvän väestön tuomiin haasteisiin teknologisilla innovaatioilla samalla uusia yritysmahdollisuuksia kehittäen ja julkista taloutta eheyttäen. Päätutkimuskysymykseni on: Miten hyvinvointiteknologioihin liittyvät odotukset käytännössä toteutetaan ja millaisin eetis-poliittisin seurauksin? Teoreettisesti tutkimus paikantuu tieteen- ja teknologiantutkimuksen monitieteiseen kenttään. Osallistun erityisesti tutkimusalan keskusteluihin, jotka lähestyvät hoivaa, ikääntymistä ja teknologiaa sekä näihin liittyvää etiikkaa ja politiikkaa käytäntöjen kautta, eivät tee lähtökohtaista erottelua hoivaan liittyvien inhmillisten ja ei-inhimillisten toimijoiden välille sekä mahdollistavat kriittisen tulokulman hyvinvointiteknologiaan kohdistuviin lupauksiin. Metodologisesti tutkimus pohjautuu monipaikkaiseen etnografiaan. Keräämäni aineistot koostuvat dokumenteista, havainnointiaineistosta ja haastatteluista. Lähestyn hyvinvointiteknologian ilmiötä etenkin sosiaalisen robotiikan ja etähoivateknologian kautta. Analysoin aineistoja käännösten sosiologian avulla eli paneutumalla siihen, miten teknologioihin liittyvien lupausten toteutuminen on riippuvaista käännösprosesseista, joissa erilaiset toimijat ja niiden tavoitteet määrittyvät uusiksi. Tutkimus kontribuoi yhteiskuntatieteelliseen hyvinvointiteknologioiden ja iäkkäiden hoivan tutkimukseen tarkastelemalla monipaikkaisesti, miten uusiin teknologioihin liittyvät, eettis-poliittisesti latautuneet ja tulevaisuuteen kohdistuvat, odotukset taipuvat osaksi hoivatyön arkea sitä samalla muuttaen. Tutkimuksessa näytän, miten hyvinvointiteknologiaan liittyvät odotukset toteutuvat käytännössä jännitteisten neuvotteluiden kautta. Väitän, että hyvinvointiteknologiaan liittyvien odotusten toteuttaminen liittyy Suomessa kahteen erilaiseen, hypen ja toivon, regiimiin. Siinä missä hypen regiimi kuvaa hyvinvointiteknologioihin liittyvien suurten odotusten politiikkaa, toivon regiimi havainnollistaa uusien teknologioiden kanssa elettyä hoivan arkea. Molemmat regiimit painottavat kokeellisuutta. Siinä missä hypen regiimissä kokeellisuuden avulla toteutetaan teknologiaan liittyviä lupauksia, toivon regiimissä kokeellisuus on välttämätöntä hyvän hoivan turvaamiseksi. Käytännössä kokeellisuus on keino yhteismitallistaa yksilön ja valtion hyvinvointi, muuttaa pettymykset saavutuksiksi ja teknologiset mahdollisuudet välttämättömyyksiksi. Kokeellisuudesta seuraa, että molemmissa regiimeissä hyödynnetään epävarmuutta resurssina

Twilight of the Anthropocene idols

Following on from Theory and the Disappearing Future, Cohen, Colebrook and Miller turn their attention to the eco-critical and environmental humanities’ newest and most fashionable of concepts, the Anthropocene. The question that has escaped focus, as “tipping points” are acknowledged as passed, is how language, mnemo-technologies, and the epistemology of tropes appear to guide the accelerating ecocide, and how that implies a mutation within reading itself—from the era of extinction events.Only in this moment of seeming finality, the authors argue, does there arise an opportunity to be done with mourning and begin reading. Drawing freely on Paul de Man’s theory of reading, anthropomorphism and the sublime, Twilight of the Anthropocene Idols argues for a mode of critical activism liberated from all-too-human joys and anxieties regarding the future. It was quite a few decades ago (1983) that Jurgen Habermas declared that ‘master thinkers had fallen on hard times.’ His pronouncement of hard times was premature. For master thinkers it is the best of times. Not only is the world, supposedly, falling into a complete absence of care, thought and frugality, a few hyper-masters have emerged to tell us that these hard times should be the best of times. It is precisely because we face the end that we should embrace our power to geo-engineer, stage the revolution, return to profound thinking, reinvent the subject, and recognize ourselves fully as one global humanity. Enter anthropos

Unfinished Histories

Colonial memory and interdisciplinary memorialization across Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Belgium Belgian colonialism was short-lived but left significant traces that are still felt in the twenty-first century. This book explores how the imperial past has lived on in Belgium, but also in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. The contributing authors approach colonial legacies from an interdisciplinary perspective and examine how literature, politics, the arts, the press, cinema, museal practices, architecture, and language policies – but also justice and ethics – have been used to critically revisit this period of African and European history. Whilst engaging with significant figures such as Sammy Baloji, Chokri Ben Chikha, Gaël Faye, François Kabasele, Alexis Kagame, Edmond Leplae, VY Mudimbe, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Joseph Ndwaniye, and Sony Labou Tansi, this book also analyses the role of places such as the AfricaMuseum, Bujumbura, Colwyn Bay, Kongolo, and the Virunga Park to appraise the links between memory and the development of a postcolonial present. Contributors: Sarah Arens (University of Liverpool), Robert Burroughs (Leeds Beckett), Bambi Ceuppens (AfricaMuseum), Matthias De Groof (University of Antwerp), Catherine Gilbert (University of Newcastle), Chantal Gishoma (University of Bayreuth), Hannah Grayson (University of Stirling), Dónal Hassett (University of Cork), Sky Herington (University of Warwick), Nicki Hitchcott (University of St Andrews), Yvette Hutchison (University of Warwick), Albert Kasanda (Charles University, Prague), Maëline Le Lay (CNRS/ THALIM, Sorbonne nouvelle), Reuben Loffman (Queen Mary University of London), Caroline Williamson Sinalo (University of Cork) Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content)

Unfinished Histories

Colonial memory and interdisciplinary memorialization across Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Belgium Belgian colonialism was short-lived but left significant traces that are still felt in the twenty-first century. This book explores how the imperial past has lived on in Belgium, but also in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. The contributing authors approach colonial legacies from an interdisciplinary perspective and examine how literature, politics, the arts, the press, cinema, museal practices, architecture, and language policies – but also justice and ethics – have been used to critically revisit this period of African and European history. Whilst engaging with significant figures such as Sammy Baloji, Chokri Ben Chikha, Gaël Faye, François Kabasele, Alexis Kagame, Edmond Leplae, VY Mudimbe, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Joseph Ndwaniye, and Sony Labou Tansi, this book also analyses the role of places such as the AfricaMuseum, Bujumbura, Colwyn Bay, Kongolo, and the Virunga Park to appraise the links between memory and the development of a postcolonial present. Contributors: Sarah Arens (University of Liverpool), Robert Burroughs (Leeds Beckett), Bambi Ceuppens (AfricaMuseum), Matthias De Groof (University of Antwerp), Catherine Gilbert (University of Newcastle), Chantal Gishoma (University of Bayreuth), Hannah Grayson (University of Stirling), Dónal Hassett (University of Cork), Sky Herington (University of Warwick), Nicki Hitchcott (University of St Andrews), Yvette Hutchison (University of Warwick), Albert Kasanda (Charles University, Prague), Maëline Le Lay (CNRS/ THALIM, Sorbonne nouvelle), Reuben Loffman (Queen Mary University of London), Caroline Williamson Sinalo (University of Cork) Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content)

Psychotropes: Models of Authorship, Psychopathology, and Molecular Politics in Aldous Huxley and Philip K. Dick

Among the so-called “anti-psychiatrists” of the 1960s and ‘70s, it was Félix Guattari who first identified that psychiatry had undergone a “molecular revolution.” It was in fact in a book titled Molecular Revolutions, published in 1984, that Guattari proposed that psychotherapy had become, in the de¬cades following the Second World War, far less personal and increasingly alienating. The newly “molecular” practices of psychiatry, Guattari mourned, had served only to fundamentally distance both patients and practitioners from their own minds; they had largely restricted our access, he suggested, to human subjectivity and consciousness. This thesis resumes Guattari’s work on the “molecular” model of the subject. Extending on Guattari’s various “schizoanalytic metamodels” of hu¬man consciousness and ontology, it rigorously meditates on a simple ques¬tion: Should we now accept the likely finding that there is no neat, singular, reductive, utilitarian, or unifying “model” for thinking about the human subject, and more specifically the human “author”? Part 1 of this thesis carefully examines a range of psychoanalytic, psychi¬atric, philosophical, and biomedical models of the human. It studies and re¬formulates each of them in turn and, all the while, returns to a fundamental position: that no single model, nor combination of them, will suffice. What part 1 seeks to demonstrate, then, is that envisioning these models as differ¬ent attempts to “know” the human is fruitless—a futile game. Instead, these models should be understood in much the same way as literary critics treat literary commonplaces or topoi; they are akin, I argue, to what Deleuze and Guattari called “images of thought.” In my terminology, they are “psycho¬tropes”: images with their own particular symbolic and mythical functions. Having thus developed a range of theoretical footholds in part 1, part 2 of the thesis—beginning in chapter 4—will put into practice the work of this first part. It will do so by examining various representations of authorship by two authors in particular: Aldous Huxley and Philip K. Dick. This part will thus demonstrate how these author figures function as “psychoactive scriv¬eners”: they are fictionalising philosophers who both produce and quarrel with an array of paradigmatic psychotropes, disputing those of others and inventing their own to substitute for them. More than this, however, the second part offers a range of detailed and original readings of these authors’s psychobiographies; it argues that even individual authors such as Huxley and Dick can be seen as “psychotropic.” It offers, that is, a series of broad-ranging and speculative explanations for the ideas and themes that appear in their works—explanations rooted in the theoretical work of the first part. Finally, this thesis concludes by reaffirming the importance of these authors’s narcoliteratures—both for present-day and future literary studies, and beyond. For while Huxley and Dick allow us to countenance afresh the range of failures in the history and philosophy of science, they also prom¬ise to instruct us—and instruct science—about the ways in which we might move beyond our received mimetic models of the human