Caring for more-than-human metabolic health

Self-tracking technologies as tools of calculation and communication in obesity and type 1 diabetes care

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6136500
AutoresVarvara Borisova (0009-0005-1725-9283), Snejina Vassileva (0000-0003-1623-2482)
Año2025
Volumen27
Número1
Fecha de publicación2025-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaArchivio antropologico mediterraneo (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2038-3215 • E-ISSN: 2038-3215
EditorialOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/145oo
OpenAlexW4411455561
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas18

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

Biosocial theory · Control (management · Diabetes mellitus · Ethnography · Health care · Human–computer interaction · Knowledge management · Metabolic control analysis · Political science · Sociology · Tracking (education · Computer Science · Diet and metabolism studies · Medicine · Obesity and Health Practices · Psychology · Social Psychology · Artificial Intelligence