Multi-site domestication: taming technologies across multiple institutional settings
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version

Permanent lenke
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3097814Utgivelsesdato
2023Metadata
Vis full innførselSamlinger
- Publikasjoner fra Cristin [3966]
- SAM - Institutt for sosialfag [551]
- SPS - Documents [451]
Originalversjon
10.1080/1369118X.2023.2255644Sammendrag
This article advances domestication theory by developing the
concept of multi-site domestication. Whereas domestication
theory traditionally focuses on the ‘taming’ of technologies at a
single site (most often, the household), the concept of multi-site
domestication captures how technologies often require different
taming processes across multiple institutional settings. In this
article, we apply the concept to understand the multi-site
domestication of AV1: a communication solution for children who
are homebound because of chronic illness or disabilities, which
creates a communicative bridge from an app on the homebound
student’s phone/tablet and to a ‘telepresence robot’ that is
placed physically in the classroom, where it is meant to function
as the homebound student’s proxy. Using data from a larger
qualitative study of the implementation of AV1 in Norway, the
article shows how the ‘traditional’ domestication processes of
appropriation, objectification, incorporation, and conversion play
out and are complicated when domestication occurs across
settings with different and at times opposing norms, rules, values,
and logics. In charting these multi-site dynamics, the article
updates domestication theory for an age of increasingly
intertwined technologies, thus helping future studies to look
beyond single sites and appreciate more complex taming
processes.