Self-Tracking

Btihaj Ajana is Associate Professor and Marie Curie Fellow at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Denmark. She is also a Senior Lecturer at the department of Digital Humanities, King's College London. Her academic work is interdisciplinary in nature, spanning areas of digital culture, media praxis, and biopolitics. She is the author of Governing through Biometrics: The Biopolitics of Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

This book provides an empirical and philosophical investigation of self-tracking practices. In recent years, there has been an explosion of apps and devices that enable the data capturing and monitoring of everyday activities, behaviours and habits. Encouraged by movements such as the Quantified Self, a growing number of people are embracing this culture of quantification and tracking in the spirit of improving their health and wellbeing.
The aim of this book is to enhance understanding of this fast-growing trend, bringing together scholars who are working at the forefront of the critical study of self-tracking practices. Each chapter provides a different conceptual lens through which one can examine these practices, while grounding the discussion in relevant empirical examples.
From phenomenology to discourse analysis, from questions of identity, privacy and agency to issues of surveillance and tracking at the workplace, this edi ted collection takes on a wide, and yet focused, approach to the timely topic of self-tracking. It constitutes a useful companion for scholars, students and everyday users interested in the Quantified Self phenomenon.

Grounds the discussion about self-tracking and self-measurement in empirical studies, an important contribution to the ongoing debate

Chapter 1. Introduction; Btihaj Ajana.- Chapter 2. Engagement and the Quantified Self: Uneventful relationships with ghostly companions; Paolo Ruffino.- Chapter 3. Apps as companions: How Quantified Self apps become our audience and our companions; Jill Walker Rettberg.- Chapter 4. Human/technology associations in self-tracking practices; Dorthe Brogård Kristensen and Carolin Prigge.- Chapter 5. Social media and self-tracking: Representing the 'health self'; Rachael Kent.- Chapter 6. Self-tracking as the mobilisation of the social for capital accumulation; Chris Till.- Chapter 7. The quantified workplace: A study in self-tracking, agility and change management; Phoebe Moore, Lukasz Piwek, and Ian Roper.- Chapter 8. Data privacy: Users' thoughts on Quantified Self personal data; Keith Spiller, Kirstie Ball, Arosha Bandara, Maureen Meadows, Ciaran McCormick, Bashar Nuseibeh and Blaine A. Price.- Chapter 9. Communal self-tracking: Data philanthropy, solidarity and privacy; Bithaj Ajana.