Domestic Information and Communication Technologies and Subject-Object Relations: Gender, Identity, and Family Life

Abstract

This paper examines the place of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the contemporary Western home and the role these technologies play in the affective shaping and constitution of gender, identity, and intersubjective family relations. In particular, we focus on the subject-object relations between people and technological artefacts to analyse how these associations contribute to the construction of domestic identities, facilitate ICT use, and transgress neatly drawn gendered difference. Involving Melbourne households as collaborators in our research through the use of a “Domestic Probes” methodology, we focus our case study on one suburban family - the Lukics - to support our claims that subject- object relations constitute both subjects and objects.1 Our contribution to family studies is to suggest that close attention to the network of associations between subjects and objects, people and technologies, can enhance an understanding of the entwining of domestic identities and technologies in the home.