Abstract
Contemporary policy strategies frame welfare technologies as a solution for welfare states facing the challenges of demographic change. Technologies are supposed to reduce or substitute the work of care workers and thereby reduce attrition among their ranks, reduce costs, and at the same make elderly people self-reliant and independent. In this paper, it is suggested that this way of framing how welfare technologies work with elderly people holds an instrumental view of technologies as well as of bodies and needs to be challenged. Drawing on an STS (Science Technology Studies) understanding of the constituting role of technology in people's lives, the guiding question in this study is how autonomy is practised in the lives of elderly people using welfare technologies. The study is based on interviews with eight elderly citizens in a Danish municipality who have been provided with a wash toilet and often also other technologies as part of their welfare service package. The study shows how autonomy is practised in various ways, how autonomy is practised in specific areas of life linked to the specific life story and body of the elderly citizen, how autonomy is situational as it is practised in specific situations during the day/week, and how autonomy is relational as it is practised in relation to specific persons and things and with specific persons and things. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the implementation of welfare technology as well as forms of governance appropriate for embodied elderly citizens and technologies.
Highlights
Welfare technology is a Scandinavian term for assistive technologies
The study is designed as an interview-based investigation, based on eight semistructured interviews with elderly citizens who were provided with a wash toilet as an element of welfare service in a large Danish municipality
Citizen Date/time Who is there Where Case No Introduction, presentation, aim Presentation of informant Tell me about your day? When and why did you receive the wash toilet? Do you know why wash toilets have been implemented in the municipality? How were you informed? How were you prepared? (i) By whom? (ii) In which ways? What was your reaction towards the idea of having a wash toilet? Tell me/show me how it works? Tell me about actual situations where you have been happy with/not happy with the wash toilet? What are your expectations from the wash toilet? What will it do for you? Other technologies in your home?
Summary
Welfare technology is a Scandinavian term for assistive technologies. The term is from 2007, and since there have been various attempts to define or delimit welfare technologies as distinct from “everyday technologies,” “medical technologies,” and so forth. The wash toilet, which is the technology focused on in this article, is explicitly mentioned in the Danish Strategy for Implementation and Dissemination of Digital Solutions and Welfare Technologies issued by the Danish government, the regions, and the Danish municipalities in 2013 [6]. With an increasing focus on the role of welfare technology as part of the solution to challenges of demographic changes, there is a need to investigate the role of specific welfare technologies in providing or supporting the autonomy of elderly people. The guiding question in this study is how elderly people practise autonomy using welfare technology, with a specific focus on the wash toilet. It is suggested that welfare technologies, qua their materiality and their constitution in specific sociopolitical practices, are actively engaged in changing these practices
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