TY - JOUR
T1 - Infrastructure at home
T2 - Technology, intimacy, and ageing in China
AU - Chong, Gladys Pak Lei
N1 - Funding Information:
I would like to thank the special issue organisers Gabriele de Seta, the journal editors and the anonymous reviewers for their support and helpful comments. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (12610118).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.
PY - 2023/9
Y1 - 2023/9
N2 - This study adopts an ethnographic approach to examine how digital technology used at home ‐ mobile platforms and smart devices ‐ shaped the intimacy of ageing adults (aged 55 to 65) in Beijing. China’s fast-ageing population and its ambition to be a high‐tech superpower are some of the conditions that have necessitated the mobilisation of governmental ideas that link population management to technology development. This study built on Ara Wilson’s (2016) essay “The Infrastructure of Intimacy” by including critical infrastructure studies to examine how practices of intimacy are translated and operationalised through daily technology use at home. Data analysis was conducted using three frameworks: (1) making intimate: familiarising and reconnecting; (2) materialising intimacy: gifts, bonding, and avoidance; and (3) self‐intimacy (re)structured: choices, self‐love, and empowerment. The ethnographic data unveils the pivotal role of intimacy in the use of technologies and platforms by the ageing informants in managing their relationships between the self and their family and social relations. With its profound functionality in broadening the practices of intimacy, such as strengthening self-worth and self‐realisation, the daily use of digital technology at home also made it easier for the ageing informants in this study to deter, replace, and lessen their need for physical interactions. The findings suggest that normalising older adults’ active use of technology at home will further advance the technologisation of Chinese society while enhancing intimacy in the ageing population.
AB - This study adopts an ethnographic approach to examine how digital technology used at home ‐ mobile platforms and smart devices ‐ shaped the intimacy of ageing adults (aged 55 to 65) in Beijing. China’s fast-ageing population and its ambition to be a high‐tech superpower are some of the conditions that have necessitated the mobilisation of governmental ideas that link population management to technology development. This study built on Ara Wilson’s (2016) essay “The Infrastructure of Intimacy” by including critical infrastructure studies to examine how practices of intimacy are translated and operationalised through daily technology use at home. Data analysis was conducted using three frameworks: (1) making intimate: familiarising and reconnecting; (2) materialising intimacy: gifts, bonding, and avoidance; and (3) self‐intimacy (re)structured: choices, self‐love, and empowerment. The ethnographic data unveils the pivotal role of intimacy in the use of technologies and platforms by the ageing informants in managing their relationships between the self and their family and social relations. With its profound functionality in broadening the practices of intimacy, such as strengthening self-worth and self‐realisation, the daily use of digital technology at home also made it easier for the ageing informants in this study to deter, replace, and lessen their need for physical interactions. The findings suggest that normalising older adults’ active use of technology at home will further advance the technologisation of Chinese society while enhancing intimacy in the ageing population.
KW - Ageing subjects
KW - infrastructure
KW - intimacy
KW - home
KW - population management
KW - smart home
KW - infrastructuralisation
KW - mobile platforms
KW - digital technology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85163792179&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/20594364231184109
DO - 10.1177/20594364231184109
M3 - Journal article
SN - 2059-4364
VL - 8
SP - 343
EP - 361
JO - Global Media and China
JF - Global Media and China
IS - 3
ER -
