Send message to Authors

Short abstract

We explore the institutional, temporal and geographical edges of the German digital welfare state, as they become apparent in projects that support digital education for older adults along the German-Polish border.

Long abstract

The proposed contribution explores current efforts at ageing well with digital technology in Görlitz, a district along the German-Polish border, with an ethnographic focus on two projects that provide digital education and support to senior citizens. Since the 1990s, the local government has strategically positioned Görlitz as an attractive retirement destination within Germany, building infrastructures of care while playing the district’s borderland history and the architectural charm of its trading towns. At the same time, many citizens perceive delays in the implementation of digital infrastructures that could support active ageing, among other things. On this background, we explore how actors from within civil society, local government and welfare institutions are forging new coalitions and experimenting with new practices for supporting one another and themselves in ageing well with digital technology. Combining ethnographic and archival research, we shed light on the institutional, temporal and geographical edges of the German digital welfare state that they are working across, and the layered political and scientific infrastructures of ageing and technology that they mobilize in the process. The contribution is based on ongoing work at “Praxisforschungsstelle Görlitz”, a local research laboratory that is a part of the T!-Raum “AlterPerimentale”, funded through the German Ministry of Research (BMFTR).