Abstract
AbstractIn the development and deployment of health and ageing innovations, underlying values such as privacy or quality of life are often seen as a relatively stable starting point, if considered at all. However, values are neither stable nor singular. This paper introduces a valuation framework to explore the co-constitution of values and technological innovations. A careful and ongoing reflection on values and valuation, in particular in innovation practices targeted at older people, is crucial when aiming to increase sustainable innovations. Therefore, we include a Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) perspective to technological development and innovation, to understand better the construction and co-constitution of ageing-in-place technologies. This framework is developed following a review of literature on values and valuation in the broad field of SSH. The proposed valuation framework consists of three core elements: (a) value multiplicity, (b) value dynamism, and (c) valuation implications. To demonstrate potential applicability of the framework, we conducted a thought experiment on values and valuation practices related to the development and potential further deployment of a COVID-19 health app in the Netherlands. This experiment pays special attention to multiple values at stake and implications for older adults who age in place. We argue this valuation framework provokes reflection on dynamic and multiple values underlying technology use and non-use, and contributes to responsible health and ageing innovations.
Highlights
Over the last decade or so, innovation policy has focused on and substantially funded new technologies designed for older people
Rather than looking at how values relate to performances, we suggest a valuation approach to anticipate future performances of these values and valuation practices. (a) Value multiplicity Values do not exist as context-independent concepts
Values affect each other and their contexts in interaction – sometimes creating tensions, other times shaping opportunities – thereby creating and reshaping the meanings given to values in practice. We suggest that such valuation implications derive from a value multiplicity and dynamism described under (a) and (b); exploring these is necessary to unpack potential valuation implications
Summary
Over the last decade or so, innovation policy has focused on and substantially funded new technologies designed for older people. Valuation studies focus on exploring how values are made in valuation practices, for instance in the development of new technologies and introduction of innovations, and on how valuation practices are dynamically constructed in interactions between different stakeholders and with their environment.
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