Responsibility and Intentionality in Socio-Material Assemblages: Data-intensive Surveillance in Dementia Care

TY - ABST

T1 - Responsibility and Intentionality in Socio-Material Assemblages: Data-intensive Surveillance in Dementia Care

AU - Meyer, Astrid

AU - Aaløkke, Stinne Ballegaard

AU - Albrechtslund, Anders

AU - Velyka, Polina

AU - Behar, Virginie

PY - 2025/9

Y1 - 2025/9

N2 - Data-intensive surveillance technologies are increasingly common in health and care practices in many welfare states. Examples of these technologies, such as GPS trackers, door alarms and motion sensors, are often used in dementia care where people, due to their illness, may have difficulties asking for help or providing the information necessary to get assistance. Drawing on insights from STS, we argue for a socio-material understanding of data-intensive surveillance in dementia care. To make this argument, we illustrate how surveillance technologies rely on continuous efforts involving people, things, and processes to work according to plan. In dementia care, surveillance technologies make it possible for people with dementia to request assistance intentionally or unintentionally. Furthermore, the technologies facilitate reactive windows in which it is possible for a care worker or relative to act and take responsibility. This means that surveillance in dementia care is a case in which humans and non-humans co-construct and share agency (in this context understood as the capacity to act). Meanwhile, it is also a case in which questions about intentionality and responsibility remain central. Reflecting on fieldwork with surveillance practices at a Danish nursing home, we examine the notions of intentionality and responsibility and how to approach them while foregrounding agency as co-constructed and shared. We ask how responsibility and intentionality are navigated and made sense of in relation to surveillance technologies. Engaging with these questions, this paper contributes to ongoing debates about responsibility, intentionality, socio-material assemblages, and shared agency within medical anthropology and STS.

AB - Data-intensive surveillance technologies are increasingly common in health and care practices in many welfare states. Examples of these technologies, such as GPS trackers, door alarms and motion sensors, are often used in dementia care where people, due to their illness, may have difficulties asking for help or providing the information necessary to get assistance. Drawing on insights from STS, we argue for a socio-material understanding of data-intensive surveillance in dementia care. To make this argument, we illustrate how surveillance technologies rely on continuous efforts involving people, things, and processes to work according to plan. In dementia care, surveillance technologies make it possible for people with dementia to request assistance intentionally or unintentionally. Furthermore, the technologies facilitate reactive windows in which it is possible for a care worker or relative to act and take responsibility. This means that surveillance in dementia care is a case in which humans and non-humans co-construct and share agency (in this context understood as the capacity to act). Meanwhile, it is also a case in which questions about intentionality and responsibility remain central. Reflecting on fieldwork with surveillance practices at a Danish nursing home, we examine the notions of intentionality and responsibility and how to approach them while foregrounding agency as co-constructed and shared. We ask how responsibility and intentionality are navigated and made sense of in relation to surveillance technologies. Engaging with these questions, this paper contributes to ongoing debates about responsibility, intentionality, socio-material assemblages, and shared agency within medical anthropology and STS.

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - Medical Anthropology Europe Conference

Y2 - 16 September 2025 through 19 September 2025

ER -