Welfare Technologies and Ageing Bodies: Various Ways of Practising Autonomy

Table 2

Welfare technology, autonomy, and ageing bodies—themes and findings.

Themes – aspects of autonomy	Findings
Notions of autonomy vary	Elderly people hold different ideas of autonomy (as do theory and policy). Autonomy is not always an important issue for elderly people
Autonomy as relational	Autonomy can be practised in association with other people and technologies, and by insisting on help from home-care personnel (clash between self-reliance and self-determination)
Autonomy as situational	Autonomy is practised in specific situations. Autonomy is not always important in toileting situations
Autonomy as linked to life story and body of elderly	Whether and when autonomy is important seem to be associated with the specific embodied identity and life story of the elderly person
Welfare technology can, but does not always play a part in practices of autonomy	Technologies can in specific situations support the autonomy of specific elderly persons, with specific embodied identities