Installing Telecare, Installing Users

Felicity Conditions for the Instauration of Usership

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5337905
AutoresT S Criado (0000-0002-0858-1757, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona, autor de correspondencia), Tomás Sánchez-Criado (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain), Daniel López Gómez (0000-0003-0095-9142, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya), Daniel López (0000-0003-2652-5959, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain), Celia Roberts (0000-0002-6103-3514, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK), Miquel Domènech, Miguel Domenech I Argemí (0000-0003-2854-3659, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain)
Año2014
Volumen39
Número5
Páginas694-719
Fecha de publicación2014-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243913517011
OpenAlexW2146271597
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas20
Referencias citadas53

This article reports on ethnographic research into the practical and ethical consequences of the implementation and use of telecare devices for older people living at home in Spain and the United Kingdom. Telecare services are said to allow the maintenance of their users' autonomy through connectedness, relieving the isolation from which many older people suffer amid rising demands for care. However, engaging with Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature on "user configuration" and implementation processes, we argue here that neither services nor users preexist the installation of the service: they are better described as produced along with it. Moving beyond design and appropriation practices, our contribution stresses the importance of installations as specific moments where such emplacements take place. Using Etienne Souriau's concept of instauration, we describe the ways in which, through installation work, telecare services "bring into existence" their very infrastructure of usership. Hence, both services and telecare users are effects of fulfilling the "felicity conditions" ( technical, relational, and contractual) of an achieved installation

Appropriation · Autonomy · Bespoke · Business · Health care · Installation · Knowledge management · Political science · Public relations · Telecare · Telemedicine · Computer Science · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Engineering · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Technology Use by Older Adults · Marketing · Mechanical Engineering