Roboter in der Pflege als sozio-technisches Verschaltungsproblem. Theoretische Angebote der Technikforschung an die Pflege(wissenschaft)

Care and robotics already bear a whole range of relations: Under the conditions of demographic change, robotic assistive systems are celebrated as solution or feared for their potential dehumanising effects. Contrary to such black-and-white positions the paper proposes a middle ground based on insights from Science and Technology Studies: Here, robotics and care denote a problern of socio-technical interconnecting, where social and technical concerns need to be viewed as closely linked. Such a perspective·provides nursing (science) with new possibilities for intervening into and shaping this issue. These consist largely in involving nursing expertise as early as possible in processes of robotic development, in integrating reflexive accounts oftechnology in nursing education, and in engaging publies beyond scientific discourse in the shaping of future care arrangements.