Configuring the body as pedagogical site: towards a conceptual tool to unpack and situate multiple ontologies of the body in self-tracking apps

Abstract

Configuring the body as pedagogical site: towards a conceptual tool to unpack and situate multiple ontologies of the body in selftracking apps, Learning,

A post-phenomenological analysis of using menstruation tracking apps for the management of premenstrual syndrome

“…Rich and Miah 54 direct analytic attention to the pedagogical processes (rather than analysis of content) that occur in app use, and how these occur in relations between embodiment, technology, and discourse; including postfeminist sensibility. 53 Della Bianca 9 (p. 75) also highlights research describing fertility tracking apps as a biopedagogy, and calls for scholarship that offers a nuanced analysis of the dynamics between ‘bodies, learning, and technologies’.…”

“…MTA are marketed as tools for managing fertility by predicting ovulation; more broadly, they offer the promise of health management, bodily prediction, control, and empowerment through self-management of the body. 6 For example, Flo's description states ‘take full control of your health with the app’, 7 Clue states ‘Clue is designed to help you stay informed and make empowered health choices’ 8 ; while Della Bianca 9 showed that MTA promoters connect MTA with multiple constructs of empowerment.…”

“…The second set of interrelated concerns focuses on the regulatory power of MTA in producing particular understandings of the menstruating body. Studies raise concerns about how MTA might reduce women's emotional, physical, social, sexual and psychological lives to biological processes and monogamous, heteronormative fertility 3,9,11,33 their potential to disassociate women from their own embodied knowledge through outsourcing to digital health technology 9 ; and the reproduction of stigma through constructing menstruation as a problem to be solved, something shameful that needs ‘discreet’ management, or an aspect of women's ‘unruly’ bodies. 3,6,14,16,18,19,34–36 Significantly, multiple analyses have questioned how MTA construct menstrual cycle regularity as a measure of good health and ‘normal’ functioning, which excludes body diversity.…”

“…Similarly, Epstein et al 19 and Ford et al 11 found that women adjusted their thoughts and behaviours in response to feedback from MTAs; while Lupton's 16 analysis of women's health and fitness apps more generally, described these technologies as taking ‘an overtly pedagogical approach, suggesting that their use will help people learn more about their bodies, which in turn will impel the desired behaviour change or habitual practices’ (Lupton, 16 p. 984). App promoters also construct apps in relation to ‘multiple “learning regimes”’ (Della Bianca, 9 p. 72). In this study, we extend such inquiry to examine what kind of pedagogy is communicated to those using MTA to manage symptoms related to PMS.…”