Séminaire du STS Lab – 5/12 – Miquel Domènech Argemí & Núria Vallès Peris
Loïc Riom
Cher·es collègues,
Vous êtes cordialement invité·es à la prochaine séance du séminaire du Lab qui se déroulera le vendredi 5 décembre, de 12h15 à 14h00, salle Geopolis 2224 et en ligne.
Au plaisir de vous y retrouver,
Chloé Schaer, Annabella Zamora et Loïc Riom
Vendredi 5 décembre 2025 - 12h15 à 14h00 - Salle Géopolis, 2224 et en ligne
Older people meet social robots: care and wellbeing
Miquel Domènech Argemí (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) et Núria Vallès Peris (Spanish National Research Council)
Over the last decade, research on socially assistive robots for older adults has expanded significantly, both in institutional settings and in private homes. Yet living at home entails sociomaterial, relational, and ethical conditions that differ profoundly from those in nursing homes or other formal care environments. These differences open new avenues for examining how social robots intervene in everyday life, how they reshape practices of care, and how they contribute—ambiguously—to emerging imaginaries of ageing, autonomy, and wellbeing.
This presentation brings together insights from two complementary studies: a pilot experience with a home-deployed robot and; a study of the introduction of social robots in residential care facilities. By analysing these two contexts side by side, the presentation highlights how divergent “logics of place” shape the integration of robotics into care.
Although the use of social robots remains in an early and exploratory phase—often limited to pilot tests—these initial experiences provide crucial analytical insights into how everyday life, care practices, and societal responses to ageing are being reorganized. What kinds of logics, imaginaries, and narratives about a “good life” and “good ageing” are mobilized when we envision living with robots, both at home and in residential care? How are expectations of autonomy, companionship, or technical efficiency negotiated alongside the rhythms, needs, and affective ties of those who actually share their living spaces with these technologies?This comparative perspective highlights how the “laboratory logic” that shapes the design of these artefacts—defined by processes of abstraction, rationalization, and standardization—often comes into tension with the lived realities of home environments and, to a different extent, with the organizational dynamics of nursing homes. Whereas domestic settings are characterized by situated, embodied, and relational forms of experience, residential facilities reveal tensions related instead to workflow integration, standardization of routines and professional mediation.
Through the analysis of narratives, spatial arrangements, and material practices, these studies shows that aligning the technical logic of robot design with the everyday logic of both domestic and institutional care environments remains one of the central challenges for the future of social robotics. If the aim is for these machines to contribute meaningfully to a “good life” in old age, it becomes essential to discuss how good care is negotiated, how care practices are reshaped, and what specific models of care are (co)produced when robots become part of everyday life—whether in private homes or in long-term care institutions.
Loïc Riom
Cher·es collègues,
Vous êtes cordialement invité·es à la prochaine séance du séminaire du Lab qui se déroulera demain vendredi 5 décembre, de 12h15 à 14h00, salle Geopolis 2224 et en ligne.