Heterogeneous assemblages of care and their normativities

We explore shifting care relations and compromises taking place as part of introducing welfare technologies in various home care contexts. Through cases and stories involving three different empirical settings and users, we discuss the adoption of welfare technology and how this is fitted and added to different care contexts. The first case is the various uses of eating robotics in a care home and in a day care center for a man living with cerebral palsy. The second case is the use of medicine dispensers in municipal home nursing services for old persons with cognitive impairment at different sites in Sweden and Norway. We debate how different normativities in terms of care context and care situation involve constant shifts and crash of normativities. We elucidate shifting relations and care needs and demands emerging as an effect of different specificities deriving from the care environment. To do this we apply analytical concepts from STS such as normativities of care, assemblage, tinkering and compromise. The contribution of this chapter to the edited volume is the following: First, throughout welfare technology implementation, there are several normativities at play that shifts and transform dependent on how the adoption goes. Second, to sustain assemblages of good care, a lot of footwork is needed, for example when the technology is moved from one context to another and/or when new actors/care providers are involved. Third, the analytical resources from STS, help us get a grasp of the mobilization of resources needed to sustain assemblages of good care.<br/><br/>Keywords: Assemblage, eating robot, medicine dispenser, normativities, compromises<br/>