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Robo-Sexism: Gendering AI and Robots in Japan and Beyond
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Although her focus is on Japanese robotics, she will make comparisons with the design of humanoid robots in the United States. In Japan, the state has advocated for the robotization of the labor force and human-robot coexistence. Child and elder-care robots are imagined as liberating (married) women from domestic chores so they can pursue a career outside the home. However, as Professor Robertson shows, advanced technology does not necessarily promote social progress and can be deployed to reinforce conservative models of sex/gender roles, ethnic nationalism, and "traditional" family structures.
Speakers
Jennifer Robertson
Professor Emerita
Robertson is the originator and General Editor of COLONIALISMS, a (now closed) book series from the University of California Press. Books in the series explore the historical realities, current significance, and future ramifications of imperialist practices with origins and boundaries outside of "the West." She is also a co-editor of Critical Asian Studies (http://criticalasianstudies.org).
Her seven books and over eighty articles and chapters address a wide spectrum of subjects ranging from the 17th century to the present, including nativist and social rectification movements, agrarianism, sex and gender systems and ideologies, mass and popular culture, nostalgia and internationalization, urbanism, the place of Japan in Anthropology, sexuality and suicide, theater and performance, votive and folk art, imperialism and colonialism, eugenics and bioethics, and robotics. Her publications have been translated into German, Finnish, French, Hebrew and Japanese. She offers graduate and undergraduate courses on anthropological history, theories and methods; non-western colonialisms; art, identity, and anthropology; bio-art; robot-human interaction; image-based ethnography; mass and popular cultures; ethnic diversity in Japan; sex, gender and sexuality; and Japanese culture and society, among others.
Robertson is currently researching, writing, and editing articles on the cultural history of Japanese colonialism, eugenics, bio-art and contemporary art, ideologies of "blood," and service robots in Japan and elsewhere. Her newest book is Robo sapiens japanicus: Robots, Gender, Family and the Japanese Nation (University of California Press, 2018. Although her primary area specialty is Japan, where she has lived for over two decades, Robertson has also worked in Sri Lanka (1982-1992) and since 1997 has been working in Israel as well. In addition to her academic work, she makes collages, watercolors, serigraphs, ceramics, and oil paintings (www.biwahamistudio.com).
via https://lsa.umich.edu/anthro/people/emeritus/jennyrob.html
Hosted By
Michael Toole
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