Topic: The Body is Not a Neutral Design Space: Designing Self-tracking Technologies with Feminist and Phenomenological Values
When: June 23, 2022 13:00–14:00 BST
Self-tracking technologies are increasingly used to track, interpret and diagnose the insides of our bodies. Sarah Homewood explores societal perspectives on bodies embedded in these self-tracking devices through designing and testing out alternative prototypes. She uses the complementary theories of feminism and phenomenology to design self-tracking devices that challenges the medicalisation of non-medical bodily processes and the reduction of the lived experience of the body into a limited set of data points. These devices acknowledge the non-clinical and social environments and contexts these devices will be used within. In this talk, she will present her research addressing the tracking of menstrual cycles, ovulation, post-exertion malaise in the context of Long Covid and continuous glucose tracking by those without diabetes.
Bio: Sarah Homewood (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Human Centred Computing at the University of Copenhagen. She has a background as a professional contemporary dancer and her research within human-computer interaction is informed by her interest in how technologies shape understandings of our bodies.
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