Robo sapiens japanicus: Robots, Gender, Family, and the Japanese Nation

Description

Japan is arguably the first postindustrial society to embrace the prospect of human-robot coexistence. Over the past decade, Japanese humanoid robots designed for use in homes, hospitals, offices, and schools have become celebrated in mass and social media throughout the world. In Robo sapiens japanicus, Jennifer Robertson casts a critical eye on press releases and public relations videos that misrepresent robots as being as versatile and agile as their science fiction counterparts. An ethnography and sociocultural history of governmental and academic discourse of human-robot relations in Japan, this book explores how actual robots—humanoids, androids, and animaloids—are “imagineered” in ways that reinforce the conventional sex/gender system and political-economic status quo. In addition, Robertson interrogates the notion of human exceptionalism as she considers whether “civil rights” should be granted to robots. Similarly, she juxtaposes how robots and robotic exoskeletons reinforce a conception of the “normal” body with a deconstruction of the much-invoked Theory of the Uncanny Valley. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 10 List of Illustrations......Page 12 Acknowledgments......Page 14 Author’s Notes......Page 18 1. Robot Visions......Page 20 2. Innovation as Renovation......Page 52 3. Families of Future Past......Page 69 4. Embodiment and Gender......Page 99 5. Robot Rights vs. Human Rights......Page 140 6. Cyborg-Ableism beyond the Uncanny (Valley)......Page 165 7. Robot Reality Check......Page 194 Notes......Page 212 Bibliography......Page 236 A......Page 272 E......Page 273 H......Page 274 J......Page 275 M......Page 276 R......Page 277 S......Page 278 Z......Page 279