Paper short abstract:

In this paper I will explore the relation between values and skill in care practice. I will use existing notions about skill in STS, developed in relation to practices of science and passion, and then translate them to the specific values of people trying to live a good life with incontinence

Paper long abstract:

In STS we know how to involve technologies in thinking about enacted values. Also, we consider people, things, values, institutions not as pre-given, but as 'becoming' in relation to each other. In this paper, I want to focus on a specific version of 'relational becoming', namely skill. Following the work of Foucault, Latour, Hennion and Gomart, and Ingold, skill is interpreted as a process of domestication, of taming and being tamed, leading to attachment, flow and play. Skill results in new ways-of-being-with, for both subject and object. In STS, these notions of skill are used to analyze science practices or practices of passion/craft, i.e. of music amateurs, drug users, 'noses'. What happens if we relate the concept of skill to the enactment of values, and more specifically, values related to living-with-a-illness? I will start from the idea that in order to value something one first has to learn how to be affected by that something. And that implies skill. Next, I will use the concept of skill to study incontinence care. In what ways do skills and values related to 'being taken over by music/drugs' differ from those related to 'living a good life with incontinence'? What are the concerns? What happens when a person does not want to learn how to be affected? Or when technologies (such as diapers) offer few possibilities to be affected? And finally, what can we learn from this case study about the notion of skill and values in STS?