Imaginative gender roles of care in the smart home: an analysis of ‘carescapes’ in Chinese commercial narratives

Abstract

This article investigates how the representations of smart home build upon gendered narratives of home as a carescape in the Chinese market on the basis of a qualitative analysis of smart home advertisements in the Chinese market. From a gender-technology perspective, it unveils contradictory narratives of gendered care and domestic carescapes arising from the current smart home industry. On the one hand, these narratives promote gender equality and democratize the home by inviting both men and women to engage in technology-mediated care work. While on the other hand, they unfold a socio-technical imaginary that reinforces gender stereotypes of domestic care. These gendered narratives are shaped by the Chinese socio-technical contexts and cultural norms, especially public discourses and cultural traditions of heteronomative family lives and gender norms as well a the gender structure imbalance in the technology industry. This article can offer a nuanced understanding of feminist geographies of home and care in a post-socialist technological context.