Home Tours Research Articles

The influence of assistive technologies on experiences of risk among older adults with age-related vision loss (ARVL).

Living with risk is a salient part of everyday living and although risk affects everyone, older adults are often regarded as a high-risk group, particularly older adults who are aging with a disability, such as vision loss. A prominent focus within low vision rehabilitation is the provision, and training, of older adults in the use of low vision assistive devices as a strategy to manage risks in both the home and community environment. This study aimed to unpack the influence of assistive technologies on experiences of risk among eleven older adults (aged 65+) with age-related vision loss. This critical ethnographic study used home tours, the go-along method, and a semi-structured in-depth interview. The study identified five prevailing themes including: 1) Moving away from the individualization of risk; 2) The cost of assistive technologies as a risk contributor; 3) Practicing 'responsible living'; Technology as an adaptive strategy to risk taking; 4) Resisting the label of 'at risk'; The influence of technology on self-identity; and 5) Technology as a substitution versus supplement for social connectedness. The study findings highlight the importance of moving beyond a technico-scientific perspective of risk, in which risk is framed as an objective phenomenon located in older adults' bodies, and instead framing risk within a broader sociocultural perspective which moves our attention to those contextual or environmental factors that shape experiences of risk for older adults with vision loss.

Home futures: a house biography of futures for a modernist high-rise estate

House biographies tend to focus on buildings’ pasts. By comparison, this article develops a house biography of futures for a modernist high-rise estate, the Aylesbury Estate in London. It argues that a house biography of futures explores the multiple futures of house, building, estate and the built environment. To provide the biography the fieldwork involved archival research, oral history interviews and home tours, semi structured in-depth interviews and photography. The article reveals the history of governed futures at the estate. Multiple modes of future governance unfolded, such as a modernist future and regeneration, due to the indeterminacy of the future. There were a range of everyday home futures, including a modernist domesticity and more ordinary futures, with the future present in the estate’s materiality and residents’ lived experiences. The article draws attention to the multiple futures of home.

Lessons learnt during the workshop “Empowerment of citizens: fostering user engagement for innovative demand response for effective flexibility”

This open letter captures key insights and recommendations from five European projects—HESTIA, SENDER, ReDREAM, ACCEPT, and iFLEX—focused on consumer engagement in Demand Response (DR) initiatives. Highlighting diverse and effective engagement strategies, including co-creation activities and virtual home tours, the letter underscores project partners' commitment to tailored and impactful user engagement. Emphasising phased organisation, varied tools, and keyword utilisation aligned with engagement timelines, the projects recognize adaptability, motivation, and eligibility as essential elements in crafting engaging recruitment materials. Addressing diverse contexts, continuous assessment is pivotal for achieving co-creation and active participation. The insights contribute to the evolving energy transition landscape, offering practical guidelines for those implementing or contemplating DR engagement strategies.

Social practice theory and household water demand: A review of literature and research evidence

AbstractThe changing climate, rapid increases in global consumption, and shock events are increasing stress on water resources globally. For policy makers and water sector stakeholders tasked with reducing demand, and for academic researchers interested in understanding how these complex issues intertwine to create current and future water demand profiles, the shortcomings of individualized behavior change approaches driven by psycho‐econometric understandings of resource consumption is increasingly evident. Since the early 2000s, social practice theory has been increasingly recognized as deepening understandings of the complex ways water is consumed and the dynamic factors that influence household demands. This review examines evidence of how social practice ideas are deployed in academic research in scope (theory; geographical; practices entities/performances; sites, locations, and temporality of practices; infrastructural configurations); methods (historical; talk—interviews, focus groups; diaries; ethnography and home tours; surveys; living labs, experiments, design methods; mixed methods); and implications (co‐production; materiality; diversity; disruption and insecurity; inequalities) including for policy and practice. Emerging from the review is a set of ideas that demonstrate how to apply insights from social practice more effectively in water studies and in water management, aiding the exploration of new areas of enquiry, policies and mechanisms to enable less intensive patterns of water use. This review points to a need for increased collaboration across the water sector and wider stakeholders to enact deep and meaningful change to how water is supplied and consumed in society.This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Methods Human Water > Value of Water

“I never look at a temperature device, I just feel it”: Practical knowledge, smart technologies, and heating and cooling practices between Denmark and Australia

Drawing on insights from Danish and Australian households, this article explores the role of practical knowledge in shaping the energy-intensive practices of domestic heating and cooling. Alongside technological interventions designed to shift and shed energy consumption, prevailing discourses regarding heating and cooling regularly emphasise the importance of householders rationally and efficiently using energy at home. Conversely, this study shows that householders routinely draw on practical forms of knowledge, including embodied understandings and everyday know-how, as they heat and cool their homes. Drawing on social practice theories, this article presents insights from 28 ethnographic interviews and home tours conducted in Greater Copenhagen, Denmark, and Canberra, Australia. Both sites incorporate emerging smart technologies which aim to shift and shed household energy demand, including through better facilitating resident's management of the indoor climate. While the selected field sites differ importantly in terms of the technologies and infrastructures present, as well as the prevailing cultures and climate, the cross-national analysis shows a conceptual overlap in the way that residents in these divergent contexts draw on their lay understandings to pursue thermally desirable home environments. The findings thereby highlight how in the course of everyday life technical and ostensibly rational forms of knowledge are often contextualised and operationalised through their combination with practical knowledge. As such, this article seeks to complement existing research into the smart infrastructures increasingly involved in household energy management by demonstrating and advocating for a fuller consideration of the role played by practical knowledge and everyday experience.

What matters in everyday life for people living with dementia: a qualitative inquiry

AbstractBackgroundResearch on what matters to people with dementia in their everyday lives is crucial to develop tailored interventions and programs. However, they are rarely asked. A scoping review of studies with the perspective of people with dementia revealed that no study has explicitly examined everyday life as a whole (Huizenga et al., 2022). A conceptualization of everyday life is lacking. This qualitative study uses the lens of everyday sociology, which focuses on the ordinary mundane aspects of life that are often unseen and unnoticed. The aim of this study was to explore how people with dementia experience their everyday lives and what matters to them. This will provide insight into the essential ingredients for support to ensure the quality of everyday life.MethodUsing a phenomenological approach, open interviews were conducted with 15 people with dementia living at home. The topic list compromised the following topics: experience of activities, relationships, places, the condition of dementia, and health and social care. Respondents participated in 1‐3 interviews. The interviews were supplemented with home tours (Pink, 2009) and walking interviews. The analysis was performed in Atlas.Ti using a descriptive content analysis. The analysis followed the phases of open, axial and selective coding. During the analysis, an advisory board of people living with dementia was consulted to ensure the content validity of the findings.ResultPreliminary findings show that everyday life for people living with dementia is a continuing struggle to maintain balance in managing progressive disruptions. Helpful are meaningful activities, especially in meeting centers, feeling connected in relationships and a sense of feeling at home related to the house and the neighborhood. Everyday life is described as living in the present but is also influenced by life history. Furthermore, other conditions, such as financial problems and physical conditions hinder everyday life.ConclusionA preliminary conclusion is that this study gives insight in what matters to the daily life of people living with dementia at home. These insights help to gain a better understanding and better connect to needs.

'I can see what's going on without being nosey…': What matters to people living with dementia about home as revealed through visual home tours.

This paper considers home from the perspective of people living with dementia supporting ongoing discourse around ageing in place and the significance of creating more inclusive communities. Forty-six home tour interviews led by people living with dementia were conducted in England and Scotland to better understand the connectivity between home and neighbourhood for people living with dementia. These interviews used a range of participatory and creative approaches including video, photographic images and in situ interviews. Data were analysed via reflexive thematic analysis. Three themes were identified in data analysis. 1. Connected home and neighbourhood, where participants revealed the dynamic relationship between home and neighbourhood; 2. Practices of home, where participants discussed the everyday nature of their homes and routines; and 3. Displaying home and family, which reflected participant's biographical homes in the context of living with dementia. The findings show that home holds multiple meanings for people living with dementia. For example, home is understood as a part of the neighbourhood and an extension of the home space into gardens and backyards, thus extending existing discourses that solely focus on the inside of people's homes. For people living with dementia, homes are also sites of negotiation and renegotiation where new meanings are created to reflect the changing nature and context of the home. There is not one fixed solution to these issues. Support and understanding for people living with dementia will need to evolve to adapt to the shifting dynamics and multiple meanings of home.

What matters most: Exploring the everyday lives of people with dementia.

Research on what matters most to people with dementia is crucial for developing tailored interventions and support. This study explored how people with dementia experience their everyday lives, providing insight into what is important to them to live the best they can at home. Inspired by a phenomenological approach, open interviews were conducted with 15 people with dementia, supplemented by home tours and walking interviews. Data collection included one to three sessions per participant. Data were analysed using descriptive content analysis and followed the phases of open, axial, and selective coding. A co-researcher group of seven people with dementia was consulted during the analysis to help interpret the emergent findings. Six dimensions of what matters most in everyday life were identified: 1) Engaging in meaningful activities, which included routines, household chores, leisure, day activities, and volunteering or work; 2) Keeping a sense of connection, in relationships within the home, with family, friends, groups, and the neighbourhood; 3) Having a sense of belonging, which included attachments inside and outside the home, and to cherished objects; 4) Connecting to self, which included the ability to reflect on past experiences, live in the present moment and anticipate the future; 5) Adjusting to ongoing changes, which included alterations in sensory perceptions, perceptions of the physical environment, and navigating shifts in interpersonal dynamics; 6) Being open to help and support, from professionals, community and society. For people with dementia, everyday life is a continuous balancing act between what matters most and what can be achieved daily. This is not only related to dementia but is also embedded in the wider perspective of life history, relational networks, and the physical environment. This study highlights the importance of identifying what matters most to people with dementia to provide person-centred support.

In Control or Being Controlled? Investigating the Control of Space Heating in Smart Homes

Low-carbon scenarios for enabling heat demand flexibility in district heating networks include smart home technology (SHT), which can automate control of heating by responding to utility signals while considering household preferences. This study empirically explores how control of space heating using SHT is performed in heating practices by occupants. The study is based on in-depth interviews and home tours with occupants living in smart homes in Denmark. The results suggest that (1) practical knowledge, (2) notions of being in control, and (3) temporal aspects of everyday life are of specific importance for how occupants perform control of space heating using SHT. Furthermore, results show how occupants act when feeling out of control. The data illustrate that control of space heating using SHT is performed in a variety of different ways, displaying the dynamic relationships between the materiality of the home, the importance of practical knowledge that occupants draw upon, and the meaning they ascribe to ‘homely’ practices. As SHT limits people’s active engagement in controlling space heating by relying on automated features, the findings presented in this paper highlight how control of space heating is more than the ability to control but concerns the dynamics of social practices performed within and outside of the home. Based on the results, the paper recommends four specific design and policy implications for future SHT solutions.

“The computer is never turned off”: Children's domestic practices and energy demand in urban China

Behavioural energy studies rarely include children. This is due to complex research ethics when working with minors but perhaps also related to overlooking children as household members with an agency of their own. Drawing from a social practice theory perspective, this research explores how children act as an intersection point of domestic practices and shape energy demand in urban China. A high-density neighbourhood in Jinan, Shandong Province, is used as a case study. Based on in-depth interviews in 13 households and “home tours” with the participants, the findings show how the children have indoor-based, digitalised, and energy-intensive lifestyles. These middle-class families with an “education fever” prioritise the children's needs and their schooling in particular, resulting in a high number of individual appliances, used in private rooms, in large apartments with pre-installed building services. The parents and grandparents expressed concerns about their children's indoor lifestyle, and the implications for health and the environment but these concerns were overruled by prioritising the education. Drawing from the concept of Schatzki's material-arrangement bundles and Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, this study perceives children's education as a form of cultural and social capital that, in this specific socio-spatial context, further drives domestic energt demand, despite recent improvements in energy efficiency of appliances and the building fabric. The paper calls for including children in energy studies and more comprehensive research approaches to better understand family dynamics, children's domestic practices and energy use.

Energy housekeeping: intersections of gender, domestic labour and technologies

Emerging energy technologies and tools aim to enhance peoples’ understanding and control over household energy. Yet, important questions are emerging about precisely whose understanding and control such technologies benefit, and how increasingly commonplace tools may shape the gendered division of domestic labour. This article explores how smart energy technologies, and in particular energy feedback, may reproduce or further entrench the unequal distribution of household labour between men and women. Theories of social practice are used to frame ethnographic research (semi-structured interviews, card game prompts and home tours) conducted with 24 Australian households using solar photovoltaics and batteries. Evidence is provided of men interpreting energy feedback for other household members, policing other householders’ energy-using practices and more broadly orchestrating patterns of energy consumption. Building on the concept of ‘digital housekeeping’, which refers to the gendered way in which domestic technologies are used and maintained, the paper suggests these practices constitute gendered forms of ‘energy housekeeping’. The energy housekeeping concept provides a means of understanding how emerging energy technologies and tools intersect with issues of gender and domestic labour. <em><strong>Practice relevance</strong></em> It is well established that domestic labour is largely performed by women. Research also shows that the use of smart technologies and energy feedback are gendered. Evidence from Australian households with solar photovoltaics and batteries shows that energy feedback and associated technologies may reinforce gender asymmetries in the home and enable men to control the domestic labour undertaken by others in the home. These outcomes are undesirable, even if they advance sector aims of aligning domestic energy consumption with patterns of renewable generation. Current energy management and feedback approaches need to engage with and be tailored for a wider, more diverse group of domestic energy users. This will better reflect the different ways that people engage with and think about energy.

When Smart Technologies Enter Household Practices: The Gendered Implications of Digital Housekeeping

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the social and gender implications of smart home technology (SHT) by looking at its role in everyday practices and domestic relations. Based on qualitative interviews and “show-and-tell” home tours in Danish smart homes, empirical insights on digital housekeeping are presented, a concept often associated with masculinity in the literature. By showing how digital housekeeping also relates to housework traditionally associated with femininity, including home decoration and cognitive labour, the paper nuances the gendered implications of the concept. The meaning and effects of digital housekeeping are discussed by critically examining the gendered manifestations in everyday practices and household members’ experiences. The paper shows how digital housekeeping potentially redistributes (gender) roles of everyday practices and forms a new point of control in the home. Although involving acts of inclusion, digital housekeeping also risks reinforcing power imbalances and existing domestic gender roles.

Co-Presence and Contingency: Comics as a Methodological Innovation in Researching Automated Futures

Recent interest in futures anthropology has argued that the discipline should play a more active role in shaping futures. However, this raises methodological problems for accessing futures and recreating the co-presence that is central to ethnography. Studying automated futures is particularly challenging because of the strong visions of technology-led futures, which rely on solutionist narratives and fail to account for everyday life. This article discusses a methodological innovation for studying automated futures through ethnographic visits, home tours, and comic strips that enable imaginative potential while drawing in the realities of everyday life and the maintenance of contingency into the future.

Maternal History of Child Maltreatment and Household Chaos: Examining the Mediating Role of Maternal and Child Psychopathology.

Caregiver history of childhood maltreatment can have pervasive effects on familial and household dynamics. Maternal history of child maltreatment (MCM) is linked to maternal depressive symptoms and offspring behavioural problems. Further, maternal and child mental health are associated with chaotic home environments. In this study, we examined the potential mediating roles of maternal depressive symptoms and child behavioural problems in the association between MCM and household chaos. A sample of 133 mother-child dyads participated in home visits during which mothers completed questionnaires measuring their history of child maltreatment, depressive symptoms, household chaos and child behaviour problems. Mothers also conducted videotaped home tours related to household chaos. Structural equation modelling results indicated that MCM was indirectly associated with higher household chaos via elevated maternal depressive symptoms and child externalizing, but not internalizing behaviour problems. Interventions aimed at mitigating the effects of MCM on maternal and child psychopathology may positively influence household dynamics.

The presence and perceptibility of personal digital data: findings from a participant map drawing method

Personal digital data are often imagined and experienced as invisible and immaterial phenomena, albeit with increasingly powerful impacts on people’s lives. In this article we discuss findings from an ethnographic project involving 30 participants in Sydney, Australia, directed at identifying their practices and understandings concerning their home-based digital device use and the personal data generated with and through engagements with these technologies. As well as engaging in a video-recorded home tour, we asked participants to hand draw maps of the digital devices located within their homes and the flows of digital data emitting from the devices. These maps mark the presence, interconnections and mobilities of digital technologies and the digitised details generated by their sociomaterial entanglements. The maps were also used to spark further discussion with the participants about their devices and data, seeking to understand their sense-making practices. Working with our concept of ‘digital scaffolding’, we explore what these participant-generated maps can reveal and make visible about digital technologies and data in relation to the domestic environment as well as the world outside the home. We consider what the maps themselves show in terms of digital presence, and what the mapping activity made perceptible within the research encounter.

Remote Fieldwork in Homes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Video-Call Ethnography and Map Drawing Methods.

Restrictions on physical movements and in-person encounters during the COVID-19 crisis confronted many qualitative researchers with challenges in conducting and completing projects requiring face-to-face fieldwork. An exploration of engaging in what we term ‘agile research’ in such circumstances can offer novel methodological insights for researching the social world. In this article, we discuss the changes we made to our ethnographic fieldwork in response to the introduction of a national lockdown to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. The ‘Living with Personal Data’ project, based in Sydney, Australia, and designed well before the advent of COVID-19, explores a diverse range of people’s feelings, practices and understandings concerning home-based digital devices and the personal digital data generated with their use. Using a video ethnography ‘home tour’ and an elicitation technique involving hand-drawn maps of people’s homes, digital devices and the personal data generated with and through these devices, this approach was designed to elicit the sensory, affective and relational elements of people’s digital device and personal data use at home. The fieldwork had just commenced when stay-at-home and physical distancing orders were suddenly introduced. Our article builds on and extends a growing body of literature on conducting fieldwork in the difficult conditions of the extended COVID-19 crisis by detailing our experiences of very quickly converting an ethnographic study that was planned to be in-person to a remote approach. We describe the adaptations we made to the project using video-call software and discuss the limits and opportunities presented by this significant modification.

DEVELOPMENT OF VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGY: HOME TOUR FOR REAL ESTATE PURCHASE DECISION MAKING

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology; derived with various potential benefits for many aspects of rehabilitation assessment, treatment, and research. The emphasis of VR is computational rather than experiential. To preview Quill Residences houses, a buyer had to go to the showroom that was only located at two places in Kuala Lumpur. The showroom houses often lack depth and a sense of reality and take quite a bit of imagination to realize what the effect will look like in the real environment. There is a less interactive virtual reality walkthrough application from a local company for real estate marketing purposes. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of interactive virtual reality walkthrough applications in home interior design for the real estate purchase decision. This research focuses on the interior design of Quill Residences and helps the real estate's buyer to identify the home interior design criteria for the purchase decision. The current study has employed the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) model representing a home tour immersive framework (HTIF) in creating practical resources to support VR application development. Results have shown that 90% of respondents believe that interactive virtual reality walkthrough application is effective in assisting the real estate's purchase decision. Hence, this study will contribute to the effectiveness of interactive virtual reality walkthrough applications for real estate purchase decisions.

Pandemic fitness assemblages: The sociomaterialities and affective dimensions of exercising at home during the COVID-19 crisis

The implementation of physical distancing measures and lockdowns across the globe to control the spread of COVID-19 has led to the home becoming a focal point of exercise and fitness activities for many people. A plethora of digital tools were hastily assembled to help people workout at home or in spaces close to home: including apps with workout suggestions, online videos and livestreamed fitness classes. In this article, we draw on our empirical material collected through semi-structured interviews and virtual ethnographic home tours with Australian adults to explore the ‘pandemic fitness assemblages’ generated with and through their improvised pandemic fitness practices inside and outside their homes. These materials illustrate how bodies, digital and non-digital technologies, and place and space came together and help to surface the affects, sensations and embodiments that emerged. We describe how people’s re-imagined fitness practices contributed to daily routines, transformed the atmospheres of the home and yielded affective experiences of escape. To do so, we think with sociospatial and feminist materialism theoretical frameworks that emphasise the generative relationships emerging between human and more-than-human forces and entities. Our analysis further illuminates the situatedness and relationality of these heterogeneous forces and considers how they come to matter within the broader sociomaterial context of COVID-19.

Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journals of Scotland: The Creation of the Romantic Author

The increase in popularity of the Home Tour in the 19th century and the publication of many journals, diaries, and guides of tours of Scotland by, such as, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, led to the perception of Scotland as a literary tour destination. The tour of Scotland invariably resulted in a journal in which identities such as writer, traveller, observer, were created. The text became a location for the pursuit of a sense of place and identity. For women in particular, the text offered opportunities to be accepted as a writer and commentator. Dorothy Wordsworth made two journeys to Scotland: the first, in 1803, with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the second, in 1822 with Joanna Hutchinson, the sister of Mary, her brother’s wife. This paper considers Dorothy’s identity constructed in those Scottish journals. Discussions of Dorothy Wordsworth have tended to consider her identity through familial relationship, and those of her writing by what is lacking in her work. Indeed, her work and her writing are frequently subsumed into the plural of ‘the Wordsworths’. This paper considers the creation of individual self in her work, and discusses the social and spatial construction of identity in Dorothy’s discourse in her journals about Scotland.

Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journals of Scotland: The Creation of the Romantic Author

The increase in popularity of the Home Tour in the 19th century and the publication of many journals, diaries, and guides of tours of Scotland by, such as, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, led to the perception of Scotland as a literary tour destination. The tour of Scotland invariably resulted in a journal in which identities such as writer, traveller, observer, were created. The text became a location for the pursuit of a sense of place and identity. For women in particular, the text offered opportunities to be accepted as a writer and commentator. Dorothy Wordsworth made two journeys to Scotland: the first, in 1803, with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the second, in 1822 with Joanna Hutchinson, the sister of Mary, her brother’s wife. This paper considers Dorothy’s identity constructed in those Scottish journals. Discussions of Dorothy Wordsworth have tended to consider her identity through familial relationship, and those of her writing by what is lacking in her work. Indeed, her work and her writing are frequently subsumed into the plural of ‘the Wordsworths’. This paper considers the creation of individual self in her work, and discusses the social and spatial construction of identity in Dorothy’s discourse in her journals about Scotland.