Mobilizing care? WeChat for older adults’ digital kinship and informal care in Wuhan households

IF 3.1 1区 文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION
Haiqing Yu, Gehao Zhang, L. Hjorth
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic saw the digital amplify all aspects of our lives—work, sociality, health, intimacy, care, and inequality. In a time of restrictions and physical distancing, the role of the digital for social inclusion—especially for older adults—was heightened with many having to care at a distance. Our study focuses on older adults from Wuhan and the role of the dominant social media app, WeChat, for intergenerational informal care through digital literacy during and after the pandemic. Often characterized in global media as the place where the virus began, many of the quotidian experiences of Wuhan people have been overlooked. We reflect upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Wuhan in 2020–2021 with 10 households. We are particularly interested in how kinship care practices in Wuhan households—as sites for complex configurations of intergenerational practices that converge digital, social, and material worlds—have shifted during the pandemic. We ask: what are the learnings, opportunities and limitations around smartphone apps like WeChat for informal care as part of filial piety? In sum, what are the possibilities and limitations for mobilizing care?
动员护理?武汉家庭老年人数字亲属关系和非正式护理微信
新冠肺炎大流行见证了数字放大了我们生活的方方面面——工作、社交、健康、亲密、护理和不平等。在一个限制和保持身体距离的时代,数字在社会包容方面的作用——尤其是对老年人来说——得到了加强,许多人不得不远距离照顾。我们的研究重点关注来自武汉的老年人,以及在疫情期间和之后,主流社交媒体应用微信通过数字素养在代际非正式护理中的作用。全球媒体经常将武汉描述为病毒的发源地,但武汉人的许多日常经历却被忽视了。我们回顾了2020-2021年在武汉进行的10户人家的民族志田野调查。我们特别感兴趣的是,武汉家庭的亲属关系护理实践——作为融合数字、社会和物质世界的代际实践的复杂配置的场所——在疫情期间发生了怎样的变化。我们问:像微信这样的智能手机应用程序作为孝顺的一部分,在非正式护理方面有什么经验、机会和局限性?总之,动员护理的可能性和局限性是什么?
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来源期刊
CiteScore
9.40
自引率
16.30%
发文量
36
期刊介绍: Mobile Media & Communication is a peer-reviewed forum for international, interdisciplinary academic research on the dynamic field of mobile media and communication. Mobile Media & Communication draws on a wide and continually renewed range of disciplines, engaging broadly in the concept of mobility itself.
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