Matters of care when introducing technology : The case of remote monitoring at night by camera

•  Purpose Professional caregivers are asked to use various technological devices, which are expected to support them or even act in their place. From a theoretical perspective, care is more and more delegated to technologies1. Care practices are transformed by this relationship between humans and artifacts2. The purpose of the paper is to explore how the issues that emerge during the implementation of new technology are attended to by caregivers and what this means for developing care mediated by technology committed to older people’s quality of life.  Method We study the process of introducing a camera for remote monitoring at night in older people’s houses (see figure 1) in a Swedish municipality by means of interviews and ethnographic observations. We analyze how this technology becomes part of care practices by following its implementation.  Results In a previous paper3, we mobilized Latour’s concept of matter of concern4 for describing the need to foreground “complicated, engaging, diverse, fragile, and situated issues”3  (p 1) to be addressed, not concealed, when introducing technology for older people. With this paper, we advance the argument by following Puig de la Bellacasa in her move from matters of concern to matters of care. By focusing on the process of delegation of caring to the camera we show how it turned to be a matter of care for several caregivers as issues concerning its use emerged. The concept of care adds a stronger affective and ethical connotation5 (p 89) to the issues we focus on. It helps us to highlight that caregivers are not only affected by interacting with technologies at work. Caregivers are also strongly committed to ethically dealing with such issues in order to provide good care. We conclude by discussing how attending to matters of care can support developing care committed to enhancing older people’s quality of life.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

industriell ekonomi och organisation

Industrial Economics and Organisations

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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