Imagining Machines, the Maternal and Care

This one day design-led workshop invited researchers and practitioners working in design research, Human Computer Interaction, AI and ethics, maternal/infant care and medical humanities to discuss, interrogate and speculate about imaginaries* (historical and contemporary), designs and opportunities with technologies related to maternal and infant care.

This workshop was part of part of Maternal Machines: Design Speculations about Fantasies of Care, a project funded by the Wellcome Trust and led by Dr Paulina Yurman. The research explores imaginaries in spaces related to maternal and infant care, and looks for design opportunities with technology that might lead to diverse forms of wellbeing.

The goal of this workshop was to collaboratively interrogate, speculate and discuss possible design scenarios in postpartum situations with experts from various multidisciplinary perspectives, and develop a research network.

* Imaginaries are families of imagined scenarios, fantasies, fears, desires and narratives, held collectively or individually. 

 What is this workshop about?

This one day workshop invites practitioners and researchers working in design, human computer interaction, AI and ethics, medical humanities and maternal and infant health. We will first look at imaginaries and ideated designs (historical and contemporary) that address themes of reproduction, motherhood, parenthood, babies and care. Many ideated scenarios represent social ideas about the maternal which we will interrogate, as they often reflect fantasies about roles of care that are worth examining. We will spend time creating our own imagined scenarios with technologies, which will hopefully reflect the diversity of perspectives from the participants.

This workshop is part of part of Maternal Machines: Design Speculations about Fantasies of Care, a project funded by the Wellcome Trust and led by Dr Paulina Yurman. The research explores imaginaries in spaces related to maternal and infant care, and looks for design opportunities with technology that might lead to diverse forms of wellbeing.

Why maternal and not parental?

Robotic nannies, artificial wombs, maternal alexas or humanoid mothers are reflections of how design, technology and fiction often reproduce gendered roles of care that can affect all types of carers. The association of mothers (how they should function) and machines (expected to reproduce scripted roles) is historical and affected by intersectional issues not only of gender but also of race and class. Not all mothers are perceived as maternal and many people who are not mothers can be maternal or provide adequate care. Visual representations of technologies for reproduction and care  (fictional or realised) often erase the body that enables a baby to grow or the human carers that look after it, reflecting in some ways old fantasies of control over reproduction and care. 

We will address these and other questions in our workshop, and will discuss what exactly we mean by maternal and whether machines can be maternal (and for whom). We will also speculate about design opportunities leading to diverse and inclusive forms of wellbeing for all carers.

What is it for?

The workshop is part of a series of activities with diverse stakeholders, as part of the Wellcome funded project Maternal Machines: Design Speculations about Fantasies of Care, that interrogates and speculates about possible scenarios and opportunities with designs and technologies in spaces related to maternal and infant care.

More about the project Maternal Machines: Design Speculations about Fantasies of Care. 

Speculative design has made useful contributions through critical interrogations of technology and its implications in society. While notions of family and reproduction are changing, dominant representations in design and technology still depict conventional and idealised situations. As AI and related technologies increasingly become entangled in spaces of care, it becomes particularly important to explore ways in which they might address diversely complex and subjective experiences and to consider the imagined scenarios, fears and expectations (real or unreal) held by a diversity of affected stakeholders.

This research project involves a series of workshops and activities with new parents and with researchers and practitioners from design and technology, AI and ethics, medical humanities and maternal health. It will use diverse design practices (like drawing, prototyping, multidisciplinary collaboration, speculative design ideation and affected users' participation) to explore imaginaries, implications and design opportunities that might lead to diverse forms of wellbeing.

Aims of the research:

• To speculate about the design opportunities and implications of artificially intelligent and related technologies in spaces of maternal and infant care.

• To explore understandings of care through interrogations of designs and technologies in collaboration with stakeholders from design, human-computer-interaction, AI and ethics, medical humanities and maternal health.

• To visualise new parents’ imaginaries around emergent technologies, including those from underrepresented groups.

• To speculate, design or visualise design opportunities that might lead to the wellbeing of relevant stakeholders.

https://wellcome.org/grant-funding/people-and-projects/grants-awarded/maternal-machines-design-speculations-about

Will the event be documented? What for? Do I need to give consent?

We will ask your consent to photograph the event and our materials produced, and to record some of our conversations, as this will inform the research. If you would rather not be photographed or recorded please let us know.

Workshop Organisers

Support Team