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Local Variations 101

careers and continue living with their parents (the so-called parasaito shinguru –
‘parasite single’ as Yamada [1999] terms them). Infusing traditionally feminised
professions (such as teaching, nursing, receptionists) with robot workers thereby
goes some way to countering this trend.
It is also important to acknowledge a range of cultural aspects to the Japanese
acceptance of these technologies in the classroom. As Robertson argues, humanoid
robots are regarded by some Japanese people as preferable to foreign labourers –
negating the sociocultural anxieties and difficulties associated with working with
and living alongside non-Japanese people. This links particularly with the issues of
honne and tatamae (face and truth) where one is expected to present a good face
regardless of discomfort or dislike for another. Perhaps even more subtly than
implicit ethnocentrism, it can be argued that the dominant belief systems of Japa-
nese culture are also arranged in such a way that supports the acceptance of robots
as “benign, benevolent living entities” (Robertson 2010, p.12). The Shinto belief
system, for example, contains a number of complex animistic beliefs about life and
death – not least the notion that vital energies and forces (kami) are present in all
aspects of the world, be they animate and non-animate, living and non-living. The
notion of basho – a key element of modern Japanese philosophy – also places less
emphasis on a definite subject/object distinction than is the case in Western
thought. Thus in contrast to the logic of Western rationality, this way of thinking
allows for contingency, co-creation and shared spaces of emergent relationships
between humans and artificial systems.
The Japanese enthusiasm for roboticised teachers may be an extreme case, yet it
illustrates the need to position technological change within the influences of local
context. Admittedly, in the case of Saya, IROBI and their successors throughout
the 2010s, these local contextual issues are wide-ranging – from global and local
economic concerns, demographic shifts, cultural understandings and what Robertson
(2010, p.28) describes as “quite unprogressive notions of gender dynamics and the
sexual division of labour, along with discriminatory attitudes towards non-Japanese
migrant workers”. The robotic teacher is therefore not simply a neutral ‘tool’ or a
‘piece of cool kit’ that is likely to spread in popularity the world over. This particularly
Japanese instance of educational technology is the result of a specific combination of
cultural, social, economic and political issues that is unlikely to be reflected in many
other contexts.

Conclusions
This chapter has focused on the importance of local context, circumstance and
culture in shaping what are often presented as global forms of educational technology.
Of course, highlighting the importance of culture and context in shaping educational
technology use, carries an attendant risk of presenting overly holistic, exaggerated or
exoticised accounts of local settings. In focusing on the case of educational robotics
in Japan, for example, care must be taken not to descend into a digitally reversed form