The Technofix Illusion. A Discourse Analysis of Norway’s Welfare Technology Policy and the Transformation of Eldercare

This study critically interrogates the “welfare technology as a solution” discourse in Norwegian national health and care policy, focusing on how it comes to be in relation to the framing of the care crisis as a particular kind of problem and the discursive constitution of elderly people as policy subjects. The research contributes to ongoing discussion about the impact of neoliberal governance in shaping the Norwegian welfare state, with a specific focus on investigating how welfare technology policy facilitates this shift. Employing Carol Bacchi’s post-structural “What’s the Problem Represented to Be” analytical framework to analyze six national healthcare policy documents, this study reveals a “technofix” logic that consolidates and mobilizes the illusion that technological solutions can solve the care crisis, which is peculiarly framed as the result of a conservative, inadequate care sector and passive care recipients. The care sector of tomorrow is discursively constructed as inevitably transformed through digital solutions that will compensate for traditional inefficiencies. The new elderly generation is invested with greater responsibilities for self-care, independence, and active aging, supported by welfare technology. Altogether, these findings reveal how technofix discursive frames present both overromanticized and silenced perspectives, ultimately shaping the understanding of care (including care agents, arrangements, practices, and relationships) and the role of the welfare state.