Mutable Mobiles: Negotiating Tensions in Everyday Information Work in Paid and Unpaid Dementia Care

Abstract

This paper details a contemporary, Canadian-centric study that focused on the information work that permeates the care work of families who are caring for a community-dwelling older adult who is living with dementia. Guided by Dorothy Smith’s institutional ethnography method of inquiry, thirteen family caregivers of community-dwelling older adults living with dementia were interviewed about their everyday information work. To more fully understand the different influences on family caregivers’ experiences of their information work, a second set of interviews was conducted with five paid dementia care staff to understand how, when, and why they provide families with information. This paper’s findings make visible the array of carerelated information work that happens in and around the home and calls into question the static boundaries that paid care providers place around information.