ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the theoretical term domestication of technology, which can help us study use and users in a way that is sensitive to the importance of meaning and context. It introduces to the term's content, history, and applications and will discuss why digitalization studies with a basis in the user are both useful and necessary. Domestication theory builds on the idea that technology, like animals and plants, must go through a taming process to become useable and (metaphorically or sometimes literally speaking) become a member of the household. Through domestication theory, we can focus on how users make actor networks out of technologies, beliefs, and practices in their own lives through the taming process, particularly in their everyday lives at work and at home. It is normal to develop new needs and desires based on technology use, which may lead to re-domestications or even domestications of new technologies.
