Caring for more-than-human metabolic health: Self-tracking technologies as tools of calculation and communication in obesity and type 1 diabetes care

This article draws on the findings of ongoing ethnographic research to examine the use of self-tracking devices and the embodiment of numerical data in type 1 diabetes (T1D) and obesity (self)care. We engage the notion of industrial and post-industrial metabolism as proposed by Hannah Landecker (201...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Varvara Borisova, Sabina Vassileva
Format: Article
Language:Italian
Published: Dipartimento Culture e Società - Università di Palermo 2025-06-01
Series:Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo
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Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/aam/10112
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Summary:This article draws on the findings of ongoing ethnographic research to examine the use of self-tracking devices and the embodiment of numerical data in type 1 diabetes (T1D) and obesity (self)care. We engage the notion of industrial and post-industrial metabolism as proposed by Hannah Landecker (2013) to explore the technologically mediated, more-than-human dynamics of metabolic health. While studies tend to depict self-monitoring devices as reinforcing a rigid, mechanistic, and control-obsessed approach to bodies, we argue that if understood in terms of the post-industrial metabolic framework, they may be seen as tools of communication and regulation rather than control, enabling care for the metabolic processes enacted within extended more-than-human relations and the biosocial environment.
ISSN:2038-3215