Christina Leeson, University of Copenhagen, DK
This paper shall take its point of departure in the idea of sociable robots now introduced around the world in the guise of artificial pets and humans, promising to be lovable, caring and responsive beings in the everyday life of people. Based on ethnographic studies in a Japanese robotics laboratory and in nursing homes and activity centres in Denmark, I wish to explore how robots crafted in the image of human beings work to trap the mind and imagination of others, as they travel from the laboratory to the daily life of people. Drawing on the idea of entrapment proposed by anthropologist Alfred Gell, this paper explores how robots are strategically crafted and set to entice and seduce people, through their aesthetic qualities and abilities to create specific moments of brilliance that dazzle people and pose an extraordinary experience to be valued in itself. Yet, I propose that analysing the entrapping capacity of humanoid robots illuminates the fragility and interdependence of these figures, which, in order to enchant anyone, depend also on dedicated people to care for their on going social life. From an anthropological perspective, it is argued that the capacity of being ‘enchanting’ is as much a matter of how they are crafted and designed as it is about how they are arranged when encountering people in their daily life.
