Quantified Self: Fitness, Vermessung und technologisierte Selbstverhältnisse
Tristan Dohnt, LMU Munich
The sub-project explores practices and logics of contemporary surveillance, control and optimization of the self in the areas of nutrition, fitness and health. The empirical focus is on the phenomenon „Quantified Self“ (QS). There, with the help of digital technology and corresponding practices of community formation, new forms of self-relations are being shaped, that rely heavily on the assumption of the body as shapeable raw material.
The trend of QS itself is about measuring, quantifying and constantly tracking bodily functions and behaviours via smartphone-apps and gadgets, which can be shared on social media. In this way, data of bodily functions and other aspects, such as financials, mood or productivity, become the basis for practices, communication and communality. The sub-project examines the practices of self-tracking in its combination of technology and subjectivity and in its topical intersections with nutrition, health, fitness and weight.
Tristan Dohnt studied Sociology (B.A.) at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena and Sociology of Media and Culture (M.A.) at the University of Trier. Since October 2015 he is a research assistant and PhD-student in the joint research project. His research interests are Practice Theory, Science & Technology Studies, Sociology of the Body and Methods of Qualitative Social Research.
