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Thinking with care infrastructures: people, devices and the home in home blood pressure monitoring
Author(s) -
Weiner Kate,
Will Catherine
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.12590
Subject(s) - scholarship , sociology , everyday life , health care , public relations , work (physics) , internet privacy , medicine , business , computer science , engineering , law , political science , mechanical engineering
The growing consumer market in health monitoring devices means that technologies that were once the preserve of the clinic are moving into spaces such as homes and workplaces. We consider how one such device, blood pressure monitors, comes to be integrated into everyday life. We pursue the concept of ‘care infrastructure’, drawing on recent scholarship in STS and medical sociology, to illuminate the work and range of people, things and spaces involved in self‐monitoring. Drawing on a UK study involving observations and interviews with 31 people who have used a consumer blood pressure monitor, we apply the concept beyond chronic illness, to practices involving consumer devices – and develop a critical account of its value. We conclude that the care infrastructure concept is useful to highlight the socio‐material arrangements involved in self‐monitoring, showing that even for ostensibly personal devices, monitoring may be a shared practice that expresses care for self and for others. The concept also helps draw attention to links between different objects and spaces that are integral to the practice, beyond the device alone. Care infrastructure draws attention to the material, but ensures that analytic attention engages with both material and social elements of practice and their connections.