Living with Smart Technologies:
The Changing Dynamics of Digitalized Domesticity.
Editorial
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SWPS University and University of Lodz
Publication date: 2026-06-29
Polish Sociological Review 2026;234(2):177-194
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
This editorial introduces the special issue Living with Smart Technologies: The Changing Dynamics of
Digitalized Domesticity, which examines how digital technologies are becoming embedded in everyday domestic
life and how they reconfigure its socio-cultural dynamics. Developed in connection with the SMARTUP project,
the issue approaches the smart home not primarily as a technological artefact but rather as a socio-cultural
phenomenon through which everyday domestic life, meanings, and power relations are reshaped. Bringing
together the perspectives of sociology and cultural studies, the editorial foregrounds the challenges related to
smart domesticity, the plural meanings of “smartness,” and the ways smart technologies intersect with axes of
difference. In introducing the contributions, the editorial departs from technocentric accounts; instead, it asks
how domestic technologies reorganize routines, household coordination, labor, and power relations at home. It
also calls for a critical assessment of smartification beyond mere functionality. Such an assessment would remain
attentive to the failures and trade-offs of smartification and to its capacity to unsettle assumptions about both
homes and technology.
FUNDING
The article is a result of the project SMARTUP: Smart(ening up) the modern home: redesigning power dynamics through domestic space digitalization. This research was funded by the National Science Center, Poland (grant no. 2021/03/Y/HS6/00250) as part of the ERA-Net Cofund CHANSE programme (Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe), supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 101004509.