How might people, whose work often keeps them away from home for extended periods, remain part of key aspects of domestic life whilst travelling for work? This is the driving question behind Family Rituals 2.0, a multidisciplinary research project exploring the evolving nature of family life within the digital age, critically examining support for work-life balance for mobile workers.

Family Rituals 2.0 was developed during an EPSRC Digital-Economy funded ‘Creativity Greenhouse’ held in July 2012 with the key theme of ‘achieving work/life balance in a digitally dependent world’. During the greenhouse process, the research team identified the daily rhythms and behaviours of family life, namely family rituals, as key features of prosaic family experience that may come into conflict with workplace demands. This is especially so, in an emerging era of hyper-mobility and concomitant digital connectivity wherein we are always on-line and contactable at any time. It was felt that in efforts to support work-life balance a deeper understanding of the evolving nature of family rituals and practices, within the digital age was required.