Paper short abstract:

This paper presents preliminary results of an ethnography of London's 'Quantified Self' (QS) group. My goal is to examine the processes of self-quantification of QS'ers so as to examine how feminist technoscience may offer us alternatives to enact, represent and govern the self.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents preliminary results of an ethnography of London's 'Quantified Self' (QS) group - the largest of such groups in Europe. Founded by two influential technolibertarians from Wired magazine, the 'Quantified Self' (QS) movement is a growing international grassroots movement whose motto is, "self-knowledge through numbers". The London members are a mixed bunch of people who share an enthusiasm for science, technology, and the pursuit of self-knowledge through data. Guided by what one member terms "physiological narcissism" QS'ers develop and use technoscientific devices (tools and software) to generate bodily data to monitor and quantify themselves, hoping to achieve a more objective form of self-knowledge, a scientific self-awareness, that will then help them optimize self-performance. Drawing upon ethnographic data and interviews with QS members, in this paper I trace the practices, discourses and shared imaginaries of London QS members and link them to a feminist lens of 'care'. My goal is to examine the processes of self-quantification of QS'ers, what they tells us about the current conceptions of data in their interactions with the 'self' so as to examine how feminist technoscience may offer us alternatives to enact, represent and govern the self.