Frequent calling as a practice of care at a distance

What is it about?

Why would adult children who live abroad call their elderly parents every day? When I was in Kerala, South India, doing my ethnographic fieldwork on aging and information and communication technologies (ICTs) in transnational families of nurses, I found that migrating children called their parents daily. One person even told that me he called his mother 15 or 20 times a day! In this article, I analyze such frequent calling in terms of care. I use material semiotics, an approach originating from science and technology studies, to understand care as a relational practice between people and non-human entities, in this case everyday ICTs such as mobile phones and webcams. I explore frequent calling as one aspect of transnational care collectives which include parents, their children, other people and ICTs that all work together to enact care. I argue that when family members are scattered around the world, frequent calling becomes a way to enact “good care” at a distance.

Featured Image

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This article shows how the norms of informal care are transformed when family members use phones and webcams to practice care at a distance. When care practices that require physical proximity, such as preparing food and sharing residence, are not possible, good care becomes about frequent calling. As different types of digital technologies have different affordances, they actively shape the norms of care in different ways.

Perspectives