Technologically Mediated Sociomaterial Arrangements Shaping Everyday Ageing

Abstract

This study explores how agency in later life is enacted within everyday sociomaterial arrangements. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), the analysis is based on open-ended survey responses from older adults and healthcare professionals. The findings suggest that people, objects, spaces, and temporal rhythms collectively shape the conditions under which agency becomes enabled or constrained in daily life. Rather than framing challenges as individual deficits, the study highlights how agency emerges through the alignment, or misalignment, of diverse human and non-human elements. Agency is found to be fragile, dynamic, and context-dependent, shaped by bodily rhythms, spatial accessibility, technological mediation, and temporal coordination. Suggestions from professionals are interpreted as proposed interventions into these everyday sociomaterial arrangements. By integrating ANT and ICF, the study offers a relational understanding of functioning that challenges individualistic models and contributes to critical ageing research by showing how agency in later life can be examined as a situated and sociomaterial achievement.