The ambiguities of surveillance as care and control: Struggles in the domestication of location-tracking applications by Danish parents
The implicit ambiguity of surveillance as both care and control has been a key theoretical issue in social science research on surveillance practices and technologies. This article addresses this ambiguity empirically by examining how parents using – or not using – location-tracking apps to monitor...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Sciendo
2021-09-01
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| Series: | Nordicom Review |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0042 |
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| author | Widmer Sarah Albrechtslund Anders |
| author_facet | Widmer Sarah Albrechtslund Anders |
| author_sort | Widmer Sarah |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The implicit ambiguity of surveillance as both care and control has been a key theoretical issue in social science research on surveillance practices and technologies. This article addresses this ambiguity empirically by examining how parents using – or not using – location-tracking apps to monitor their children negotiate this tension. Drawing on 17 semistructured interviews conducted with parents in different regions of Denmark, we examine the struggles of these parents to fit this technology into their world and to reconcile their uses with ideals of trust, privacy, and good parenting. By highlighting how users and non-users perceive and negotiate the controlling affordances of tracking apps, we emphasise the potential for negotiation, contestation, and resistance raised by this technology, and the contingent nature of its appropriation and effects. Thereby, it brings nuances to techno-pessimistic accounts of child tracking and calls for further empirical studies examining how these technologies are experienced in practice. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-56d50aa926a34ded9ff8372a5b5a80e4 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2001-5119 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2021-09-01 |
| publisher | Sciendo |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nordicom Review |
| spelling | doaj-art-56d50aa926a34ded9ff8372a5b5a80e42025-02-02T15:48:50ZengSciendoNordicom Review2001-51192021-09-0142s4799310.2478/nor-2021-0042The ambiguities of surveillance as care and control: Struggles in the domestication of location-tracking applications by Danish parentsWidmer Sarah0Albrechtslund Anders1Center for Surveillance Studies, Department of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, DenmarkCenter for Surveillance Studies, Department of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, DenmarkThe implicit ambiguity of surveillance as both care and control has been a key theoretical issue in social science research on surveillance practices and technologies. This article addresses this ambiguity empirically by examining how parents using – or not using – location-tracking apps to monitor their children negotiate this tension. Drawing on 17 semistructured interviews conducted with parents in different regions of Denmark, we examine the struggles of these parents to fit this technology into their world and to reconcile their uses with ideals of trust, privacy, and good parenting. By highlighting how users and non-users perceive and negotiate the controlling affordances of tracking apps, we emphasise the potential for negotiation, contestation, and resistance raised by this technology, and the contingent nature of its appropriation and effects. Thereby, it brings nuances to techno-pessimistic accounts of child tracking and calls for further empirical studies examining how these technologies are experienced in practice.https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0042surveillancefamilylocation trackingchild trackinguser studies |
| spellingShingle | Widmer Sarah Albrechtslund Anders The ambiguities of surveillance as care and control: Struggles in the domestication of location-tracking applications by Danish parents Nordicom Review surveillance family location tracking child tracking user studies |
| title | The ambiguities of surveillance as care and control: Struggles in the domestication of location-tracking applications by Danish parents |
| title_full | The ambiguities of surveillance as care and control: Struggles in the domestication of location-tracking applications by Danish parents |
| title_fullStr | The ambiguities of surveillance as care and control: Struggles in the domestication of location-tracking applications by Danish parents |
| title_full_unstemmed | The ambiguities of surveillance as care and control: Struggles in the domestication of location-tracking applications by Danish parents |
| title_short | The ambiguities of surveillance as care and control: Struggles in the domestication of location-tracking applications by Danish parents |
| title_sort | ambiguities of surveillance as care and control struggles in the domestication of location tracking applications by danish parents |
| topic | surveillance family location tracking child tracking user studies |
| url | https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0042 |
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