"Based on 16-month ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai, Ageing with Smartphones in Urban China tackles the intersection between the ‘two revolutions’ experienced by the older generation in Shanghai: the contemporary smartphone-based digital revolution and the earlier communist revolutions. We fin
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d that we can only explain the smartphone revolution if we first appreciate the long-term consequences of these people’s experiences during the communist revolutions. The context of this book is a wide range of dramatic social transformations in China, from the Cultural Revolution to the individualism and Confucianism in Digital China. Supported by detailed ethnographic material, the observations and analyses provide a panoramic view of the social landscape of contemporary China, including topics such as the digital and everyday life, ageing and healthcare, intergenerational relations and family development, community building and grassroots organizations, collective memories and political attitudes among ordinary Chinese people." (Publisher description).
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"Ageing with Smartphones in Uganda is based on a 16-month ethnography about experiences of ageing in a neighbourhood in a diverse neighbourhood in Kampala, Uganda. It examines the impact of smartphones and mobile phones on older people’s health and everyday lives as part of the global 'Anthropolog
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y of Smartphones and Smart Ageing' project. In taking the lens of the smartphone to understand experiences of ageing in this context, the monograph presents the articulation and practice of ‘togetherness in the dotcom age’. Taking a ‘convivial’ approach, which celebrates multiple ways of knowing about social life, Charlotte Hawkins draws from these expressions about cooperative morality and modernity to consider the everyday mitigation of profound social change. ‘Dotcom’ is understood to encompass everything from the influence of social media to urban migration and lifestyles in the city, to shifts in ways of knowing and relating. At the same time, dotcom tools such as mobile phones and smartphones facilitate elder care through, for example, regular mobile money remittances. This book explores how dotcom relates to older people’s health, in particular their care norms, social standing, values of respect and relatedness, and intergenerational relationships – both political and personal. It also re-frames the youth-centricity of research on the city and work, new media and technology, politics and service provision in Uganda. Through ethnographic consideration of everyday life and self-formation in this context, the monograph seeks to contribute to an ever-incomplete understanding of how we relate to each other and to the world around us." (Publisher description).
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"Based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, Ageing with Smartphones in Urban Chile analyses the experience of ageing for Peruvian migrants aged around 60, who have lived in Chile for over 20 years. Their lives are informed by a series of experiences of being in between. They live between two coun
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tries, two generations (their Peruvian parents and their Chilean children), two different stages in life (retained youth and menacing old age), between giving care (to their parents) and not wanting care (from their children) and between a continuing legacy (through their children, who have a promising future) and not transmitting legacy (some traditions will not pass on to the next generation). Peruvian migration has been one of the most studied in Chile. However, neither the experience of ageing of migrants in Chile nor the experience of late middle age has been fully addressed yet. By focusing on the entanglement of ageing, migration and technology, this monograph is an ethnographic contribution to an unexplored subject in the vast literature on migration studies in Chile." (Publisher description).
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"With people living longer all over the world, ageing has been framed as a socio-economic problem. In Brazil, older people are expected to remain healthy and autonomous while actively participating in society. Based on ethnographic research in São Paulo, Ageing with Smartphones in Urban Brazil show
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s how older people in a middle-class neighbourhood conciliate these expectations with the freedom and pleasures reserved for the Third Age. Work is what bonds this community together, providing a sense of dignity and citizenship." (Publisher description).
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"Worldwide, it is anticipated that care needs of older populations will outstrip available resources. Sub-Saharan Africa lacks relevant long-term care systems for older persons, and technology could play a crucial role in supporting families, communities and government in vital care management. This
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volume addresses, in three parts, the under-explored topic of age-inclusive ICT development and use in resource-poor countries. Part 1, Context and Project Background, sets out ICT service delivery to older persons globally and within South Africa, drawing on guiding legislative frameworks. It discusses the we-deliver project as an example of developing and applying age-inclusive technology in developing countries. Part 2, Principles, Process and Applications, proposes situationally and relationally informed ethical conduct in applying community-based research; the development of a questionnaire and application to present first-time baseline findings of older South Africans’ cell phone use, highlighting its intergenerational facilitation. The development of the Yabelana (alluding to ‘sharing’) ecosystem (consisting of a website, an app, and an unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) code) turned out to be a first of its kind: a digital self-sustaining technology artefact that serves as an eDirectory to provide information about local services or events for (but not exclusively) older individuals. Part 3, Critical Reflections and the Way Forward, considers the inclusion of marginalized older individuals and the future of ICT and cell phone technology to inform research, practice, and policy." (Back cover)
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"This volume captures the domestication of mobile communication technologies by families in Asia, and its implications for family interactions and relationships. It showcases research on families across a spectrum of socio-economic profiles, from both rural and urban areas, offering insights on chil
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dren, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. While mobile communication diffuses through Asia at a blistering pace, families in the region are also experiencing significant changes in light of unprecedented economic growth, globalisation, urbanisation and demographic shifts. Asia is therefore at the crossroads of technological transformation and social change. This book analyses the interactions of these two contemporaneous trends from the perspective of the family, covering a range of family types including nuclear, multi-generational, transnational, and multi-local, spanning the continuum from the media-rich to the media have-less." (Publisher description)
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