Repair of Unstable Sociomaterial Relations: A Study on Librarians’ and Social Workers’ Practices in Addressing the Needs of Their Clients

• In this paper we address the increased digitalization of the fabric ofmodern welfare societies, and the expectations on individuals to be independentand digitally capable that follows from this. We focus on enactments of repairaimed at maintaining the lives of individuals situated in unstable sociomaterialrelations in the context of social care and a public library in Sweden. The purposewas to explore enactments of repair in two Swedish empirical contexts: one ina social service setting, and one in a municipal library setting. The analysis wasconducted with the help of the concept of repair, understood as maintenance ortransformation. We conducted interviews and observations in these two settingsand analyzed these with the help of the concept of repair. The analysis shows that inthe context of social service, repair was enacted differently in relation to differentinterpretations of existing legislation concerning minimal livelihoods, and that inthe context of the public library repair was enacted in relation to expectations of thelibrary visitors to become digitally independent. The analysis showed that in bothof these contexts repair was enacted as maintenance rather than as transformation.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Studier av offentlig förvaltning (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Public Administration Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Repair

Life sustaining web

Social services

Libraries

Digitalization

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)