Institut for Kommunikation og Kultur

This presentation explores the question: What motivates the use of tracking technologies in families, and how does the use transform the relations between parent and child? The purpose is to investigate why tracking technologies are used in families and how these technologies potentially change the relation between parents and children. The use of tracking technologies in families implicate negotiations about the boundaries of trust and intimacy in parent-child relations which can lead to strategies of resistance or modification (Fotel and Thomsen, 2004; Rooney, 2010; Steeves and Jones, 2010). In the presentation, we report from a qualitative study that focuses on intergenerational relations. The study draws on empirical data from workshops with Danish families as well as individual and group interviews. We aim to gain insights about the sharing habits and negotiations in intimate family relations, particularly with regards to location sharing, social media activity and cultural consumption. Furthermore, we aim to use our study to develop postpanoptic surveillance theory (Lyon, 2006) in a more dynamic and relational direction by underscoring the events that lead to active tracking and the co- construction (Oudshoorn & Pinch, 2003) of interpersonal surveillance.