Cultivating (digital) capacities : a role for social living labs?

Focusing in particular on the Australian context, this chapter firstly unpacks and critiques how these concepts have developed and framed the way the digital is signified, experienced and mobilized in everyday life. Drawing upon insights from a current project that aims to rethink the conceptual frameworks, tools and environments for examining the role of the digital in contemporary societies, we introduce the concept of Digital Capacities as a holistic, relational and strength-based complement to the suite of existing concepts and approaches (We acknowledge the contributions of the other members of the Cultivating Digital Capacities project team: Liam Magee, Emma Kearney, Sam Yorke, Delphine Bellerose, Paul James, Justine Humphrey and Louise Crabtree. Finally, we consider how digital capacities might be operationalized in the context of social living labs in ways that bring diverse stakeholders together to research, design and implement strategies to enhance the benefits that technology can offer