Digital housekeepers and domestic expertise in the networked home. (November 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kennedy, Jenny; Nansen, Bjorn; Arnold, Michael; Wilken, Rowan; Gibbs, Martin
• Is Part Of: Convergence. Volume 21:Number 4(2015:Nov.)
• Page Start: 408
• Page End: 422
• Publication Date: 2015-11
• Subjects: Digital housekeeping -- domestication -- domestic labour -- expertise -- gender -- labour -- networked home; Mass media -- Technological innovations -- Periodicals; Telecommunication -- Periodicals; Mass media and technology -- Periodicals; 621.3897
• DOI: 10.1177/1354856515579848
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1354-8565

Abstract

This article examines the distribution of expertise in the performance of 'digital housekeeping' required to maintain a networked home. It considers the labours required to maintain a networked home, the forms of digital expertise that are available and valued in digital housekeeping, and ways in which expertise is gendered in distribution amongst household members. As part of this discussion, we consider how digital housekeeping implicitly situates technology work within the home in the role of the 'housekeeper', a term that is complicated by gendered sensitivities. Digital housework, like other forms of domestic labour, contributes to identity and self-worth. The concept of housework also affords visibility of the digital housekeeper's enrolment in the project of maintaining the household. This article therefore asks, what is at stake in the gendered distribution of digital housekeeping?