scholarly journals The quantified self: What counts in the neoliberal workplace

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 2774-2792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phoebe Moore ◽  
Andrew Robinson

Implementation of quantified self technologies in workplaces relies on the ontological premise of Cartesian dualism with mind dominant over body. Contributing to debates in new materialism, we demonstrate that workers are now being asked to measure our own productivity and health and well-being in art-houses and warehouses alike in both the global north and south. Workers experience intensified precarity, austerity, intense competition for jobs and anxieties about the replacement of labour-power with robots and other machines as well as, ourselves replaceable, other humans. Workers have internalised the imperative to perform, a subjectification process as we become observing entrepreneurial subjects and observed, objectified labouring bodies. Thinking through the implications of the use of wearable technologies in workplaces, this article shows that these technologies introduce a heightened Taylorist influence on precarious working bodies within neoliberal workplaces.

Author(s):  
Ruvimbo Machaka ◽  
Ruth Barley ◽  
Laura Serrant ◽  
Penny Furness ◽  
Margaret Dunham

AbstractThe Global North has over the years been a popular destination for migrants from the Global South. Most of the migrants are in their reproductive ages who go on to bear and raise children. The differences and subjectivity in the context of their experiences may have an impact on how they ensure that their children have the best possible health and well-being. This paper synthesises 14 qualitative research papers, conducted in 6 Global North countries. We gathered evidence on settled Southern African migrants experiences of bearing and raising children in Global North destination countries and how they conceptualise sustaining children’s health and well-being. Results of the review indicated a concerning need for support in sustaining children’s health and well-being. Cultural and religious beliefs underpin how the parents in these studies raise their children. More research is needed which engages with fathers and extended family.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 283-286
Author(s):  
Mark Seasons

The articles in this thematic issue represent a variety of perspectives on the challenges for equity that are attributable to climate change. Contributions explore an emerging and important issue for communities in the Global North and Global South: the implications for urban social equity associated with the impacts caused by climate change. While much is known about the technical, policy, and financial tools and strategies that can be applied to mitigate or adapt to climate change in communities, we are only now thinking about who is affected by climate change, and how. Is it too little, too late? Or better now than never? The articles in this thematic issue demonstrate that the local impacts of climate change are experienced differently by socio-economic groups in communities. This is especially the case for the disadvantaged and marginalized—i.e., the poor, the very young, the aged, the disabled, and women. Ideally, climate action planning interventions should enhance quality of life, health and well-being, and sustainability, rather than exacerbate existing problems experienced by the disadvantaged. This is the challenge for planners and anyone working to adapt to climate change in our communities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Theron

In this article, I argue that an ecological systems approach to resilience – specifically, one that is sensitive to how contextual determinants shape successful adaptation differentially – offers a meaningful way to enable sub-Saharan adolescents to adapt well to the apparently intractable risks to their health and well-being. Accordingly, I draw on studies of child and adolescent resilience from sub-Saharan Africa and the global North to show that the resilience field has largely moved beyond individual-focused theories of resilience that have the (long-term) potential to jeopardize adolescent health and well-being and advance neoliberal agendas. I emphasize that the recent attention to differentially impactful resilience-enablers casts suspicion on incautious application of universally recurring resilience-enablers. Allied to this, I problematize the delay in the identification of resources that impact the resilience of sub-Saharan adolescents differentially. Finally, I distil implications for resilience-directed praxis and research that have the potential to advance the championship of adolescent resilience in sub-Saharan Africa.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wortley ◽  
Ji-Young An ◽  
ClaudioR Nigg

PMLA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 125 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Tomso

Scholars in the Humanities May be Surprised to Learn That There has Been an Outpouring of New Work on HIV/AIDS by Economists and political scientists in the past few years, as it has finally become clear that the pandemic has seriously impacted governmental operations, redirected state resources, and threatened national and even international security around the globe. This upsurge of interest accentuates the decline in scholarly attention to HIV/AIDS in the humanities that has occurred now that the high tide of AIDS activism has receded across much of the global North and West and nearly a generation has passed since the pandemic first appeared. In an effort to jump-start a second-wave approach to the study of HIV/AIDS in the humanities, I show here how new scholarship in the fields of economics and political economy helps to revitalize questions of subjectivity, epistemology, globalization, and representation that have long been central to the study of HIV/AIDS in traditional humanities disciplines. Given the global reach of the pandemic and the vast technological, disciplinary, and governmental expertise required to contain it, a deliberate yet self-reflexive turn to political economy may help humanities scholars find a foothold in responding to HIV/AIDS. The pandemic has been the catalyst for an entirely new set of techniques of governance related to the health and well-being of nations and global populations—a global biopolitics of HIV/AIDS—yet there is virtually no work in the humanities responding to these dramatic changes.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan Feng ◽  
Matti Mäntymäki ◽  
Amandeep Dhir ◽  
Hannu Salmela

BACKGROUND Self-tracking technologies are widely used in people’s daily lives and healthcare. Academic research on self-tracking and quantified self has also accumulated rapidly in recent years. Surprisingly, there is a paucity of research that reviews, classifies, and synthesizes the state of the art with respect to self-tracking and quantified self. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to identify the state of the art in self-tracking and quantified self in health and well-being. METHODS We have undertaken a systematic literature review on self-tracking and quantified self in promoting health and well-being. We reviewed altogether 81 empirical research papers. RESULTS Our results show that prior research has focused on three perspectives with respect to self-tracking and quantified self, namely individual user, healthcare professional, and market. We further describe the research themes under each of the three perspectives. Moreover, we classified the future research suggestions given in the literature into five directions: 1) employment of longitudinal research designs, 2) users’ modalities in the use of self-tracking technologies, 3) issues related to data sharing, 4) psychological and behavioral aspects of self-tracking, and 5) self-tracking in clinical use. We further described the specific research areas for each research direction. CONCLUSIONS This systematic literature review contributes to research and practice by assisting future research activities and providing practitioners with a concise view of the state of the art in self-tracking research.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Ehrkamp

This second report on geographies of migration examines scholarship on the racial-spatial politics of immigration in the Global North, which have emerged as important issues in the context of rising nativism, the criminalization of immigrants, and the racist exclusion of immigrants from polities. The report first highlights research that has revealed the entanglements of race, immigration law, and citizenship before turning to ‘new immigrant destinations’ as central contemporary sites where race and belonging are hashed out. The following section examines the effects of anti-immigrant policing and racist politics on the health and well-being of immigrants. Activism and immigrant youth mobilization that challenge anti-immigrant politics and racist exclusions from citizenship are at the center of the arguments I discuss in the penultimate section. I conclude by calling for more geographic analysis of the racial-spatial politics of immigration, as well as of the activism that challenges such politics.


2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 144-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Elmadfa ◽  
Alexa L. Meyer

A high-quality diet is one of the foundations of health and well-being. For a long time in human history, diet was chiefly a source of energy and macronutrients meant to still hunger and give the strength for work and activities that were in general much harder than nowadays. Only few persons could afford to emphasize enjoyment. In the assessment of quality, organoleptic properties were major criteria to detect spoilage and oxidative deterioration of food. Today, food hygiene is a quality aspect that is often taken for granted by consumers, despite its lack being at the origin of most food-borne diseases. The discovery of micronutrients entailed fundamental changes of the concept of diet quality. However, non-essential food components with additional health functions were still barely known or not considered important until recently. With the high burden of obesity and its associated diseases on the rise, affluent, industrialized countries have developed an increased interest in these substances, which has led to the development of functional foods to optimize special body functions, reduce disease risk, or even contribute to therapeutic approaches. Indeed, nowadays, high contents of energy, fat, and sugar are factors associated with a lower quality of food, and products with reduced amounts of these components are valued by many consumers. At the same time, enjoyment and convenience are important quality factors, presenting food manufacturers with the dilemma of reconciling low fat content and applicability with good taste and appealing appearance. Functional foods offer an approach to address this challenge. Deeper insights into nutrient-gene interactions may enable personalized nutrition adapted to the special needs of individuals. However, so far, a varied healthy diet remains the best basis for health and well-being.


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