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Challenging Sociality

An Anthropology of Robots, Autism, and Attachment

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  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Kathleen Richardson

    1. Faculty of Technology, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom

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  • Explores how robots are imagined as occupying a unique liminal space between the human and the nonhuman
  • Examines how robots are put to use to help children with autism develop social behaviours and skills
  • Helps to create a new narrative around stigma, autism spectrum disorders, and society

Part of the book series: Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI (SOCUSRA)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Challenging Sociality

    • Kathleen Richardson
    Pages 1-27

  3. Autism, Social Attachment and Things

    • Kathleen Richardson
    Pages 29-48

  4. The Experiment: The Effectiveness of a Humanoid Robot for Helping Children Develop Social Skills

    • Kathleen Richardson
    Pages 49-61

  5. Echo and Narcissus and Pronoun-Reversal

    • Kathleen Richardson
    Pages 63-80

  6. Attachment Theory and Autism

    • Kathleen Richardson
    Pages 81-101

  7. Autism and the Machine

    • Kathleen Richardson
    Pages 103-120

  8. Critical Autism Studies and Robot Therapy

    • Kathleen Richardson
    Pages 121-140

  9. Conclusion: Terminating the Machine

    • Kathleen Richardson
    Pages 141-152

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 153-156
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the development of humanoid robots for helping children with autism develop social skills based on fieldwork in the UK and the USA. Robotic scientists propose that robots can therapeutically help children with autism because there is a “special” affinity between them and mechanical things. This idea is supported by autism experts that claim those with autism have a preference for things over other persons. Autism is also seen as a gendered condition, with men considered less social and therefore more likely to have the condition. The author explores how these experiments in cultivating social skills in children with autism using robots, while focused on a unique subsection, is the model for a new kind of human-thing relationship for wider society across the capitalist world where machines can take on the role of the “you” in the relational encounter. Moreover, underscoring this is a form of consciousness that arises out of specific forms of attachment styles. 

Authors and Affiliations

  • Faculty of Technology, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Kathleen Richardson

About the author

Kathleen Richardson is Professor of Ethics and Culture of Robots and AI at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, UK.




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