ABSTRACT
Domestication theory has been influential in understanding how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are transformed – domesticated – through their involvement in the patterns of life and practices of users. Such transformations occur in a variety of domestic and non-domestic contexts comprising people in diverse kinds of relations, as family members, friends or workers. Numerous studies have highlighted the productiveness of this theoretical framework. The present chapter explores an untheorised aspect of domestication theory and that is how persons are themselves domesticated through their engagement with ICTs. What is implied but not a focal point of the domestication framework is that the transformations suggested by the model are effected by persons (e.g. family members) and their myriad social relations. Although the domestication approach argues that it is ICTs that are domesticated, this chapter suggests something different. It is true that ICTs find a place in the social and moral lives of people but that it is persons that are transformed – domesticated – through their relations with ICTs. This is because the relations persons form with ICTs are analogous to that formed with persons; ICTs are comparable to persons in the way they summon interaction and communication. This chapter illustrates this argument through a range of cross-cultural ethnographic case studies where persons are domesticated in association with local social conventions and conduct.
