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Ageing with Smartphones in Japan

Haapio-Kirk, Laura; (2024) Ageing with Smartphones in Japan. Ageing with Smartphones. UCL Press Green open access

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Abstract

Older adults in Japan, one of the most ageing countries in the world, are starting to adopt the smartphone. What does this mean for friendship, gendered labour, multigenerational living, internal migration, health and indeed purpose in life (ikigai)? Based on 16 months of ethnographic research in urban Kyoto and in rural Kōchi Prefecture, Ageing with Smartphones in Japan follows people as they navigate social and personal shifts post-retirement. Examining how older women and men negotiate oppressive structures within society, the smartphone emerges as both challenging and perpetuating gender-based norms around care. In witnessing the response of older adults to the wider context of societal ageing and the various forms of precarity that it can engender, this book observes how people creatively navigate the challenges and opportunities of later life to define their own experience of ageing. The rise of digital visual communication among people in their 50s and older opens new possibilities for sociality and proximity among friends and family. It also presents a methodological challenge for researchers. This book responds with a series of graphic methodological experimentations, including co-created comics, participant drawings, and the author’s own fieldwork sketches and imaginative illustrations, to explore this fundamental shift in communication towards digital images.

Type: Book
Title: Ageing with Smartphones in Japan
ISBN-13: 9781787355767
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.14324/111.9781787355767
Publisher version: https:// doi.org/ 10.14324/ 111.9781787355767
Language: English
Additional information: Text © Author, 2024 Images © Author and copyright holders named in captions, 2024 licence unless indicated otherwise in the credit line to the material. If you would like to reuse any third- party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non- commercial Nonderivative 4.0 International licence (CC BY- NC- ND 4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non- commercial use providing author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Attribution should include the following information: Haapio- Kirk, L. 2024. Ageing with Smartphones in Japan: Care in a visual digital age. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/ 10.14324/ 111.978178 7355767 Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at http:// crea tive comm ons.org/licenses/ .
Keywords: Japan, digital, ethnography, anthropology, ageing
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10195247
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