eCAPE smart home interviews

This dataset contains transcripts from semi-structured interviews with 15 Danish households with smart home technology installed. The interviews were conducted in 2020 as part of the eCAPE project (New energy consumer roles and smart technologies – actors, practices and equality) running from 2018-2023. eCAPE is financed by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement number 786643). The project is led by Professor Kirsten Gram-Hanssen from Department of the Built Environment, Aalborg University, and the interviews were conducted by Line Kryger Aagaard from Department of the Built Environment, Aalborg University, as part of her PhD study within eCAPE. Interviews were transcribed by Line Kryger Aagaard and a student assistant.

The participating households had a combination of various smart home technologies (e.g. smart lighting, smart heating, digital voice assistants, robotic vacuum cleaners). The recruitment process is described in a paper by Aagaard & Madsen (2022): “The first nine households in the study were recruited via SHT [smart home technology] Facebook groups where people share experiences and advice, and six additional households were recruited via snowball sampling referred from the initial participants and from one contact of the authors. Only men responded to the posted research call and common to all of them was an outspoken interest in technology. They all lived in opposite-sex relationships, except one single man, and were asked to bring their female partners for the interviews, which 12 out of 14 did” (Aagaard & Madsen 2022: 680).

All names are pseudonyms and participants’ age, occupation and other personal data have in some cases been altered and in some cases paragraphs have been removed, all to ensure anonymity. Alterations are marked with bold writing and removed parts are indicated with brackets and X’s. Participants received written and oral information on the research purpose and handling of their personal data and gave their written consent to participate. The interviews were conducted in the participants’ homes, except from one interview that was conducted online. Photos were taken during the interviews with participants’ consent, but these photos have not been published due to the protection of the anonymity of participants.

Apart from the interview transcripts this dataset contains the interview guide (Danish and English version) and the posted call for research participants (Danish and English version).

To this date, the interview data have been analyzed in two journals papers:

Aagaard, Line Kryger. 2022. ‘When Smart Technologies Enter Household Practices: The Gendered Implications of Digital Housekeeping’. Housing, Theory and Society 0 (0): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2022.2094460.
Aagaard, Line Kryger, and Line Valdorff Madsen. 2022. ‘Technological Fascination and Reluctance: Gendered Practices in the Smart Home’. Buildings and Cities 3 (1): 677–91. https://doi.org/10.5334/bc.205.