Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Creative Forms of Family Intimacy: Managing Family Bonds Across Distances

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Creative Families

Abstract

ICTs are an indispensable part of many families’ everyday life, not only for family management but also for maintaining family intimacy. Yet, we know little about the everyday practices of using ICTs for family work. How do contemporary Swedish families use ICTs to support family intimacy? We investigate how particular social needs for family intimacy lead to creative forms of technology adaptation and use. We conducted interviews with six, Swedish families, living in different households, cities, and even countries. Our results detail three main distances—spatiotemporal, generational, and embodied—that people experience in their family life. We conclude that bridging distances requires doing digital intimate family work; i.e. families find ways of translating or recreating intimate family settings, situations, and interactions into digital contexts.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Ahmed, S. (2004) The Cultural Politics of Emotion (New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Andreassen, C. S., Pallesen, S. and Griffiths, M. D. (2017) ‘The Relationship Between Addictive Use of Social Media, Narcissism, and Self-esteem: Findings from a Large National Survey’, Addictive Behaviors, 64, 287–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aspers, P. (2001) Markets in Fashion: A Phenomenological Approach (Stockholm: City University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Baym, K. N. (2010) Personal Connections in the Digital Age (Cambridge: Polity).

    Google Scholar 

  • Berlant, L. (1998) ‘Intimacy: A Special Issue’, Critical Inquiry 24 (2), 281–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bilbao-Osorio, B., Soumitra, D. and Lanvin, B. (2013) The Global Information Technology Report 2013 (Geneva: World Economic Forum).

    Google Scholar 

  • Boneva, B. and Kraut, R. (2005) ‘Email, Gender, and Personal Relationships’, in Haythornthwaite, C. A. and Wellman, B. (eds) The Internet in Everyday Life (Malden, MA: Blackwell), pp. 372–403.

    Google Scholar 

  • Broadbent, S. 2016. Intimacy at Work: How Digital Media Bring Private Life to the Workplace (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Chudnovskaya, M. and Kolk, M. (2017) ‘Educational Expansion and Intergenerational Proximity in Sweden’, Population, Space, and Place, 23 (1), e1973.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Denzin, N. K. (ed.) (1972) Sociological Methods: A Sourcebook (Chicago: Aldine).

    Google Scholar 

  • Di Leonardo, M. (1987) ‘The Female World of Cards and Holidays: Women, Families, and the Work of Kinship’, Signs, 12 (3), 440–453.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eklund, L., von Essen, E., Jonsson, F. and Johansson, M. (2018) ‘To Be or Not to Be on the Internet: Unpacking Online Anonymity’, Stockholm Internet Research Group Working Paper Series, SIRR2018_1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisler, R., Donnelly, G. and Montuori, A. (2016) ‘Creativity, Society, and Gender: Contextualizing and Redefining Creativity’, Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies 3 (2), Article 3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Findahl, O. (2017) Swedes and Internet 2017 (Gävle: Wii).

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1992) The Transformations of Intimacy (Cambridge: Polity).

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldscheider, F. (2000) ‘Men, Children and the Future of the Family in the Third Millennium’, Futures, 32, 525–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, N. (2000) Doing Psychological Research (Buckingham: Open University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Haythornthwaite, C. and Wellman, B. (2002) The Internet in Everyday Life (Oxford: Blackwell).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kothari, C. R. (2004) Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques (New Age International).

    Google Scholar 

  • Krasnova, H. et al. (2017) ‘Why Men and Women Continue to Use Social Networking Sites: The Role of Gender Differences’, The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 26 (4), 261–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kvale, S. and Brinkmann, S. (2009) Interviews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research (Los Angeles: Sage).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lasén, A. and Casado, E. (2012) ‘Mobile Telephony and the Remediation of Couple Intimacy’, Feminist Media Studies, 12 (4), 550–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levina, M. (2012) ‘Our Data, Ourselves: Feminist Narratives of Empowerment in Health 2.0 Discourse’, in Gajjala, R. and Oh, Y. J. (eds) Cyberfeminism (New York: Peter Lang), pp. 13–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Licoppe, C. (2004) ‘Connected Presence: The Emergence of a New Repertoire for Managing Social Relationships in a Changing Communication Technoscape’, Environment and Planning D: Society and space, 22 (1), 135–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone, S. (2008) ‘Taking Risky Opportunities in Youthful Content Creation: Teenagers’ Use of Social Networking Sites for Intimacy, Privacy and Self-expression’, New Media & Society, 10 (3), 393–411.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lofland, J. and Lofland, L. H. (1995) Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observations and Analysis (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lüscher, K. (2002) ‘Generationenbeziehungen’, in Endruweit, G. and Trommsdorff, G. (eds) Wörterbuch der Soziologie (Stuttgart: E. Ulmer), pp. 141–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meßmer, A.-K., Schmidbaur, M. and P.-I. Villa (2014) ‘Intimitäten - Wie Politisch ist das Vertraute?’, Feministische Studien, 1, 3–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, D. H. J. (1996) Family Connections: An Introduction to Family Studies (Cambridge: Wiley).

    Google Scholar 

  • Nave-Herz, R. (2002) ‘Familiensoziologie’, in Endruweit, G. and Trommsdorff, G. (eds) Wörterbuch der Soziologie (Stuttgart: E. Ulmer), pp. 148–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ohlsson-Wijk, S., Turunen, J. and Andersson, G. (2017) Family Forerunners? An Overview of Family Demographic Change in Sweden, Stockholm Research Reports in Demography 2017, (13).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosa, H. (2015) Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Schier, M. and Jurczyk, K. (2008) ‘Familie als Herstellungsleistung in Zeiten der Entgrenzung’, Sozialwissenschaftlicher Fachinformationsdienst soFid, 9–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silva, E. B. and Smart, C. (2004) ‘The “New” Practices and Politics of Family Life’, in Silva, E. B. and Smart, C. (eds) The New Family? (London: Sage), pp. 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smart, C. (2006) ‘Intimacy’, in Turner, B. S. (ed) The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press), p. 308.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stempfhuber, M. (2014) ‘Limited Intimacy? Die Mediale Herstellung von Intimität am Beispiel von Grindr’, Feministische Studien, 1, 49–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turkle, S. (2011) Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wajcman, J., Bittman, M. and Brown, J. E. (2009) ‘Intimate Connections: The Impact of the Mobile Phone on Work/Life Boundaries’, in Goggin, G. and Hjorth, L. (eds) Mobile Technologies: From Telecommunications to Media (New York: Routledge), pp. 9–22.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Helga Sadowski & Lina Eklund

Authors
  1. Helga Sadowski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Lina Eklund
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Helga Sadowski .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Jana Mikats

  2. Institute of Education Research & Teacher Education, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Susanne Kink-Hampersberger

  3. Department of Sociology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Libora Oates-Indruchová

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Sadowski, H., Eklund, L. (2021). Creative Forms of Family Intimacy: Managing Family Bonds Across Distances. In: Mikats, J., Kink-Hampersberger, S., Oates-Indruchová, L. (eds) Creative Families. Palgrave Studies in Mediating Kinship, Representation, and Difference. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70803-0_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70803-0_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-70802-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-70803-0

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation