Ten Careful families and care as ‘kinwork’: an intergenerational study of families and digital media use in Melbourne, Australia
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Jolynna Sinanan
Abstract
This chapter examines how digital media practices, relating to care and intimacy (the ‘intimate surveillance’), are being played out in the daily lives of intergenerational and cross-cultural families in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Melbourne with thirteen households in 2015–2016, it considers how ‘doing family’ practices — the ways that family members maintain co-presence through routines and everyday tasks — are interwoven with intergenerational and cross-cultural relationships, revealing textures of intimacy and boundary work that intersect with the mundane to create new types of social surveillance and disappearance. The chapter also introduces the framework of ‘digital kinship’, which provides a life course perspective to take into account the differing roles, positions, meanings and contexts over a person’s lifespan, and concludes with a discussion of how friendly surveillance, staying in touch and caring at a distance are made possible through social media platforms.
Abstract
This chapter examines how digital media practices, relating to care and intimacy (the ‘intimate surveillance’), are being played out in the daily lives of intergenerational and cross-cultural families in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Melbourne with thirteen households in 2015–2016, it considers how ‘doing family’ practices — the ways that family members maintain co-presence through routines and everyday tasks — are interwoven with intergenerational and cross-cultural relationships, revealing textures of intimacy and boundary work that intersect with the mundane to create new types of social surveillance and disappearance. The chapter also introduces the framework of ‘digital kinship’, which provides a life course perspective to take into account the differing roles, positions, meanings and contexts over a person’s lifespan, and concludes with a discussion of how friendly surveillance, staying in touch and caring at a distance are made possible through social media platforms.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and tables v
- Notes on contributors vi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- The family has become a network xv
- Connecting families? An introduction 1
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Theoretical and methodological approaches
- Theoretical perspectives on technology and society: implications for understanding the relationship between ICTs and family life 21
- Recursive approaches to technology adoption, families, and the life course: actor network theory and strong structuration theory 41
- Weaving family connections on and offline: the turn to networked individualism 59
- Oversharing in the time of selfies: an aesthetics of disappearance? 81
- The application of digital methods in a life course approach to family studies 97
- Cross-disciplinary research methods to study technology use, family, and life course dynamics: lessons from an action research project on social isolation and loneliness in later life 113
- From object to instrument: technologies as tools for family relations and family research 133
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Empirical approaches
- Use of communication technology to maintain intergenerational contact: toward an understanding of ‘digital solidarity’ 159
- Careful families and care as ‘kinwork’: an intergenerational study of families and digital media use in Melbourne, Australia 181
- Floating narratives: transnational families and digital storytelling 201
- Rescue chains and care talk among immigrants and their left-behind parents 219
- ‘Wherever you go, wherever you are, I am with you ... connected with my mobile’: the use of mobile text messages for the maintenance of family and romantic relations 237
- Permeability of work-family borders: effects of information and communication technologies on work-family conflict at the childcare stage in Japan 255
- Digital connections and family practices 273
- Index 295
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and tables v
- Notes on contributors vi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- The family has become a network xv
- Connecting families? An introduction 1
-
Theoretical and methodological approaches
- Theoretical perspectives on technology and society: implications for understanding the relationship between ICTs and family life 21
- Recursive approaches to technology adoption, families, and the life course: actor network theory and strong structuration theory 41
- Weaving family connections on and offline: the turn to networked individualism 59
- Oversharing in the time of selfies: an aesthetics of disappearance? 81
- The application of digital methods in a life course approach to family studies 97
- Cross-disciplinary research methods to study technology use, family, and life course dynamics: lessons from an action research project on social isolation and loneliness in later life 113
- From object to instrument: technologies as tools for family relations and family research 133
-
Empirical approaches
- Use of communication technology to maintain intergenerational contact: toward an understanding of ‘digital solidarity’ 159
- Careful families and care as ‘kinwork’: an intergenerational study of families and digital media use in Melbourne, Australia 181
- Floating narratives: transnational families and digital storytelling 201
- Rescue chains and care talk among immigrants and their left-behind parents 219
- ‘Wherever you go, wherever you are, I am with you ... connected with my mobile’: the use of mobile text messages for the maintenance of family and romantic relations 237
- Permeability of work-family borders: effects of information and communication technologies on work-family conflict at the childcare stage in Japan 255
- Digital connections and family practices 273
- Index 295
