Distributed agency in smart homecare interactions: A conversation analytic case study

Abstract

The agent of action in Human-Computer Interaction is, as the hyphenated name of the field suggests, usually conceptualized as an contrastive binary of either human or computer. This study, informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, instead describes the interactional achievement of distributed agency in a ‘smart homecare’ setting where a homecare worker and a disabled person coordinate shared activities using a virtual assistant. We focus on the tacit criteria, attributions, and discourses of agency embedded in the interactional details of their everyday homecare routine. The analyses reveal how collaboration in everyday care tasks involves the distributed agency of all participants, irrespective of their ostensible ‘humanness’. Our findings (a) provide a critical perspective on the technological imaginary of expensive, high-tech robotic replacements for human care work; (b) advocate low-tech strategies for adapting consumer technology for smart homecare systems; and (c) suggest alternative approaches to agency in assistive technology design, grounded in detailed observation of the interactional infrastructure of real homecare settings.