Paper short abstract:

In the US, home care has become seniors' preference, the state-market solution to the problem of where and how to care for older adults, and an antonym for institutionalized care. This paper problematizes these assumptions by exploring the possibilities of technocare in (un)making the home.

Paper long abstract:

Claimed as the preference of seniors who want to "age in place," extolled by experts as a cheaper and better alternative to the gloomy nursing homes of yore, sought after by care agencies as the "next frontier" for technological growth and profit, but still employing a highly underpaid workforce that is in short supply, home care as the long-term care policy for older adults has increasingly become a topic of political and public debates. Based on ethnographic research, this paper problematizes these assumptions by analyzing the transformative possibilities that different forms of technology might have in reconfiguring the meanings of and experiences in the home. Thinking with heterotopia, I ask what the home turns into once populated by long-term care professionals, front-line care workers, healthcare equipment, digital forms for reimbursement and health assessment, beeping sounds, flashing lights, tubes, and various other accouterments. If the home of home care becomes a new institution, what kind of institution does it become? Which logic does it have? Why should we ask? What is at stake?