Doing data together – affective relations and mobile ethnography in home visits

Abstract

This article is concerned with the doing and production of data. We ask how data are made in intimate spaces such as the home in collaboration with the different parties involved in home-based care and services. The article builds on ethnographic field notes from 73 home visits, in the context of home-based mental health, substance abuse and social care for adults in Finland and Sweden. Drawing on affect theory, the article aims to foreground aspects of the production of data and research that are often edited out of the research process. In so doing, we argue that the production of data would not be possible without the active and affective collaboration of all parties involved in home visits. Thus, the article scrutinizes in detail the efforts made by different parties, such as researchers, clients and workers to do and produce data. While we study an atypical setting of institutional interaction, we contend that affects and affective relations gain particular importance in the home.