FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY | Seminar
Data Society: Shaping Technology – Shaping Care-Work

Care and care-work are in crisis according to recent scholarship – but it also becomes visible, when following media reports on care-shortages, demographic change and the pandemic. Techno-fixes, which are seen as technological solutions to societal problems, are seen as a means to deal with this crisis – at least, according to some. Technology development in the care-sector promises to lift the burden of care-workers and to support them in their everyday work. However, research shows how the entrance of technologies in the field of care and care-work is accompanied by processes such as rationalization, fragmentation and intensification of work, but it is also highlighted, how questions of a re-evaluation of the this (i.a. monetarily) devalued and feminized sector could take place. In this seminar, I want to present my thesis proposal and share first insights into the findings of my project. Hereby, I take a step back and take the technology development of care-technologies into consideration, to answer the research guiding questions: How is digitalization of care-work shaped socially and by the technology development? How are these digital technologies affecting care-work? To make sense of the interrelationships and tensions, I am taking concepts of Science and Technology Studies, i.e. the Social Shaping of Technology (MacKenzie & Wajcman 1999) into account, as well as concepts from the sociology of work and the labour process theory (e.g., Pfeiffer 2018, Thompson & Laaser 2021). By conducting a document analysis of care-technologies and qualitative interviews with care- and tech-workers, my goal is to not only shed light on the application of these technologies at work but also to understand how technology companies are shaping care and care-work via their digital care-technologies.