Keeping Track of Family: Family Practices and Information Practices

Abstract:In this article, I describe what a practices approach offers to the study of both information and family. I present findings from an empirical study analyzing the intertwining of information and family in the work of “keeping track” in the family context. Findings highlight three interrelated and overlapping ways that the information practices family members engage in both “do” family and define family membership. First, family members may be the object of information practices: keeping track of family. Second, family members might be the audience for information practices: keeping track for family. Finally, family members may engage in collaborative family-related information practices: keeping track with family. Information practices such as keeping track enact family practices and reveal them, both to family members and to outsiders. Looking at the intersection of information and family practices helps information studies scholars to reflect on family life as a context within which information practices take place and prompts us to explore questions to better understand the situatedness of information practices within particular contexts. For information professionals, this work provides insight into the complexity of people’s everyday life information practices.