TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘There’s only so much data you can handle in your life’
T2 - accommodating and resisting self-surveillance in women’s running and fitness tracking practices
AU - Esmonde, Katelyn
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [Doctoral Award]; the Graduate School, University of Maryland [Flagship Fellowship]; the Graduate School, University of Maryland [Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship. The author wishes to thank Drs. Shannon Jette, David L. Andrews, Cheryl Cooky, Adam Beissel, Jason Farman, and Zack Beauchamp for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. She is also grateful to her research participants who took the time to run with her and share their stories and lives, and the anonymous reviewers and editors of this journal who provided invaluable, thoughtful, and patient feedback o this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - The widespread use of Fitbits, Garmins and Apple Watches is emblematic of the ‘Quantified Self’ (QS) movement, where participants utilise digital self-tracking devices to generate a broad range of data on their health and fitness for the purposes of self-improvement. Gendered expectations for beauty and health have led to women becoming disproportionately represented amongst fitness tracker wearers, as weight loss and self-discipline for the purposes of beauty are often considered women’s endeavours. To examine the gendered ways in which wearable technologies are utilised in fitness practices, I look to ‘running interviews’ and semi-structured interviews with 10 women who identify as self-tracking runners to better apprehend the ways in which self-surveillance through a fitness tracking device is both accommodated and resisted. Drawing on a Foucauldian conceptual framework of surveillance, discipline and technologies of femininity, I describe four strategies of resistance to datafication: labelling some data as excessive, not tracking every run or every day, invoking one’s humanity and fallibility as a way of limiting disappointment from unfavourable data, and re-valuing feelings over data. While these self-trackers have undergone this process of problematisation and deemed this level of self-surveillance to be an important part of what they see as a healthy lifestyle, they do not fully accept practices of dataism, optimisation and technologies of femininity, entirely.
AB - The widespread use of Fitbits, Garmins and Apple Watches is emblematic of the ‘Quantified Self’ (QS) movement, where participants utilise digital self-tracking devices to generate a broad range of data on their health and fitness for the purposes of self-improvement. Gendered expectations for beauty and health have led to women becoming disproportionately represented amongst fitness tracker wearers, as weight loss and self-discipline for the purposes of beauty are often considered women’s endeavours. To examine the gendered ways in which wearable technologies are utilised in fitness practices, I look to ‘running interviews’ and semi-structured interviews with 10 women who identify as self-tracking runners to better apprehend the ways in which self-surveillance through a fitness tracking device is both accommodated and resisted. Drawing on a Foucauldian conceptual framework of surveillance, discipline and technologies of femininity, I describe four strategies of resistance to datafication: labelling some data as excessive, not tracking every run or every day, invoking one’s humanity and fallibility as a way of limiting disappointment from unfavourable data, and re-valuing feelings over data. While these self-trackers have undergone this process of problematisation and deemed this level of self-surveillance to be an important part of what they see as a healthy lifestyle, they do not fully accept practices of dataism, optimisation and technologies of femininity, entirely.
KW - Foucault
KW - Quantified self
KW - sociology of sport
KW - surveillance
KW - technologies of femininity
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U2 - 10.1080/2159676X.2019.1617188
DO - 10.1080/2159676X.2019.1617188
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85065971374
SN - 2159-676X
VL - 12
SP - 76
EP - 90
JO - Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health
JF - Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health
IS - 1
ER -