Is digital housekeeping care? Visions, legitimations and negotiations of care work in the smart home

Abstract With the adoption of smart home technologies in the household, a new type of work is emerging, which has been termed ‘digital housekeeping’ or ‘digi-housekeeping’. In the context of science and technology studies, there has recently been a debate about whether digital housework can be considered a form of unpaid domestic work. As digital housekeeping is predominantly performed by men, gender research furthermore raises the question of whether the smart home contributes to a more gender-equitable distribution of unpaid domestic work. In contrast to other studies that have examined the extent to which digital housework corresponds to predetermined definitions of care, this article focuses on the knowledge and interpretations of household members themselves. Based on ethnographic data collected in smart homes, it analyses the ways in which digital housekeeping is associated with care in everyday domestic practices and what ideas of care are expressed in the visions, legitimation patterns and negotiations pertaining to the smart home.