Future ageing: Welfare technology practices for our future older selves

Abstract

In this paper, we elaborate on how the future older person is characterised and what future ageing entails in relation to welfare technologies highlighting which actors, social and material, affect innovation governance and discussing who does not. Starting from a distinction between public, private, and academic perspectives we discuss how companies, public sector organisations, and research-oriented actors construct future ageing through sociomaterial practices in the welfare technology arena. We base our reasoning on an ethnographic study conducted during the 2017 edition of the yearly MVTe-Mötesplats Välfärdsteknologi och E-hälsa Swedish event (in English: Meeting place for Welfare Technology and e-Health). We use the concept ‘welfare technology practices’ to describe how actors perform future ageing by producing and reproducing a scenario where the positive effects of technology are assumed and the plurality of future older selves is overlooked. We problematise this view by reflecting on ageing as a complex sociomaterial process that calls for welfare technology practices and policies open to a pluralistic view of the future as futures. This study may inspire research that further explore how future ageing is constructed as well as support the development of welfare technology practices for addressing current blind spots.