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Short abstract:

In overheated urban spaces in Fukuoka, Japan, the increasing use of cooling wearables mediates citizens' daily routines, comfort, and health. Considering cooling wearables' evolution from space cyborg tools to their popularisation, I explore heat adaptation within and beyond air-conditioned spaces.

Long abstract:

Over the past decade, Fukuoka, Japan, has experienced unprecedented summer temperatures, setting new records, with a projected increase of 60 additional hot days per year by 2100 (Mabon et al., 2019). In the framework of this climatic shift, this paper investigates emerging practices of cooling in urban spaces through the use of wearables.

Drawing on an eight-month fieldwork conducted in Fukuoka, I delve into how cooling wearables, such as neck fans, fan vests, ice rings, and thermoelectric cooling rings, mediate daily practices of working, dwelling and moving within heated urban environments. This paper traces the genealogy of cooling wearables, from their origin in the 1960s as tools for space cyborgs to their contemporary commercialisation for everyday use. While initially developed for therapeutic purposes and human enhancement in extreme conditions like sports, military, and strenuous labour, there has been a recent shift in focus towards making these technologies available to the general public, thereby altering their biopolitical significance to cater to the daily routines, comfort and health of ordinary individuals.

Simultaneously, I argue that the emphasis on managing body temperature rather than altering the ambient air is ingrained in the practices of coping with overheated urban environments in Japan. This paper contributes empirically to ongoing discussions in the social sciences regarding heat adaptation (Venkat, 2020; Opperman et al., 2022; Roesler et al., 2022), shedding light on practices that operate within and extend beyond air-conditioned spaces.