Sociotekniske imaginationer i ældreplejen: Et eksplorativt, teoristyret casestudie af sociotekniske imaginationer og plejepersonalets praksis, i forbindelse med afprøvning af sensorbaseret velfærdsteknologi
Oversat titel
Sociotechnical imaginaries in elderly care: An exploratory, theory-driven case study of sociotechnical imaginaries and care staff practices in connection with testing sensor-based welfare technology
Forfatter
Semester
4. semester
Udgivelsesår
2025
Afleveret
2025-12-16
Abstract
Background: Like many other countries, Denmark faces a major demographic challenge in its welfare sector: an increasing number of older adults requiring complex care and a declining workforce available to provide it. Politically, welfare technology and digitalisation are framed as key solutions to this imbalance. However, municipal implementation shows that these expectations are far more difficult to realise in practice. A tension emerges between societal expectations of what technology ought to achieve and the effects that technologies actually produce in everyday care. To explore this tension, I collaborated with a municipal welfare technology team and a nursing home where a project to pilot sensor-based welfare technology on a dementia ward was in its early stages. Purpose: In the thesis I examined how welfare technology becomes meaningful in practice – not only in political strategy documents. The purpose was to identify the sociotechnical imaginaries that informed the pilot of sensor-based welfare technology at political and municipal levels, and to analyse how these imaginaries materialised locally within the nursing home, both at management level and among care workers. Methodology: The thesis was designed as an exploratory, theory-driven case study using a qualitative mixed-methods approach for data collection and analysis. Rooted in Science and Technology Studies and a social constructivist perspective, I applied Sheila Jasanoffs concept of sociotechnical imaginaries as the main analytical lens, supplemented by Yrjö Engeströms activity system in the analysis of practice. Data collection included desk research, interviews and participant observations, while data analysis involved document analysis and theory-driven qualitative analysis. In the methodological discussion, Tove Thagaard’s qualitative quality criteria were used to assess credibility, confirmability, and transferability. Findings: At the political level, sociotechnical imaginaries centred on efficiency and the “datafication” of care, envisioning welfare technology as a way to streamline work and enable data-driven decision-making. At the municipal level, these visions were translated into concrete expectations for the pilot, with the municipality acting as a mediator between national governance logics, organisational demands, and local care practices. Here, imaginaries emphasised and demanded resource optimisation and the need for technology to create experienced value for both staff and residents. Nursing home management, in contrast, did not demand efficiency gains. Their imaginaries focused on safety, stability, and relational care, and they associated efficiency-driven gains with potential declines in care quality. Among care workers, technology was imagined as a flexible aid that only made sense when it supported relational, person-centred care, not when it threatened to replace it. Their work remained deeply situated and guided by residents’ individual needs. Overall, the study shows that imaginaries were not simply imposed from above but were actively co-produced and continually renegotiated across levels. The pilot was less a technical project than a sociocultural and organisational change process in which future visions were created, contested, and adapted through everyday care practices. The findings highlight that the meaning of technology can only be understood by examining the imaginaries that shape – and are reshaped by – situated care work.