Home in cybersymbiosis: making home with digital oddkin

Abstract

ABSTRACT Acknowledging the history of more-than-human approaches in human geography, and the entrenchment of computational devices in the home, this paper advances the concept of cybersymbiosis as framework to think about the way we make home with computational devices. Doing so provides a speculative tool for thinking through our relationships with devices and the way we make home with them in critical ways. Three insights are identified: first, that these relationships are made and change over time; second, that our relationships with technology are often characterised by ambivalence, meaning it is not just about control and exploitation but extends to the mutually defining nature of those relationships; and third, that our relationships with home technologies can be conceptualised as a speculative ecology. Understanding our co-habitation with such devices can bring more sustainable and ethical approaches to our increasingly digitised homelives.