Homes and Selves

Abstract

There has been much concern about the damage that new technologies can bring to the home as mobile phones, pagers, miniaturised surveillance cameras and so on are used from work or other sites to control and reassure that things are in order at home (Urry, 2004; Spigel, 2005; McDowell et al., 2007). How extensively do these impinge on home life? What does the presence of these technologies, and more traditional technologies in the home, mean for sociological thinking about personal identities and relationships? How do homes and selves relate in the context of technological changes? In what ways can these novel contemporary ways of living with technologies be captured in research and how do they challenge theoretical understandings about the relations between material and social life?