Feeling person-able: Thinking with sex robots, therapy dogs and artificial friends
Date
2024-02-19
Authors
Hamilton, Sheryl N.
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Abstract
I have long been interested in the stories we tell about the entities which/who, in any given time and place, emerge as favoured candidates for membership in one of Western law’s most hallowed categories: the legal person. The performances required for the political prize of personality – reason, language, consciousness or self-interest – are as pernicious as they are prevalent. Yet boundaries always presuppose boundary work. And beings are entangled; categories porous; stories, unruly.
In this presentation, I examine some contemporary narratives featuring sex robots, therapy dogs and artificial friends drawn from a range of sites of legal culture. These tales reveal our anxieties and obsessions, our delusions and desires. They make visible a series of conceptual traps in Western thinking about the person, and at the same time, open up possibilities for impersonating differently. Embodiment, entanglement, touch and care all surface in these stories with powerful effects and affects.
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legal person, contemporary narratives, embodiment, entaglement, touch and care, sex robots, therapy dogs, artificial friends