Abstract

Contrary to the idea that the world is broken and beyond repair, ongoing care and maintenance are primary concerns of people learning with technologies. This paper advances a perspective that an ethic of care has epistemic significance and locates families’ caring practices in technologically-mediated home learning environments. I develop this perspective on human-technology relations, which I call “cherished world thinking,” as a response to social-ecological perspectives on “broken world thinking” (cf. Jackson). I frame family learning through critical care studies and feminist epistemologies, focusing on sociotechnical dimensions of care and maintenance. As I consider how families enacted care for and with their cherished technologies, I interrogate the social-ecological conditions that are simultaneously held in place through maintenance. Drawing from ethnographic data of 13 families in 2 US cities—including fieldnotes, informal interviews, and video collected in homes and neighborhoods—I found that families engaged in “cherished world thinking.” I develop this concept through interaction analysis of two cases where families caring for each other and their environments were sociotechnical achievements, calling attention to forms of learning that emerge when people care for that which they hold dear.

摘要

与世界已经破碎且无法修复的想法相反，持续的护理和维护是人们学习技术的主要关注点。本文提出了一种观点，即护理伦理具有认知意义，并将家庭的护理实践定位在以技术为媒介的家庭学习环境中。我发展了这种关于人与技术关系的观点，我称之为“珍爱的世界思维”，作为对“破碎世界思维”的社会生态观点的回应（参见杰克逊）。我通过重症监护研究和女权主义认识论来构建家庭学习，重点关注护理和维护的社会技术层面。当我考虑家庭如何照顾和使用他们珍爱的技术时，我审视了通过维护同时保持到位的社会生态条件。根据美国 2 个城市 13 个家庭的民族志数据——包括田野笔记、非正式访谈以及在家庭和社区中收集的视频——我发现这些家庭从事“珍视世界的思考”。我通过对两个案例的交互分析发展了这个概念，在这两个案例中，家庭彼此关心，他们的环境是社会技术成就，呼吁人们关注当人们关心他们所珍视的东西时出现的学习形式。