DIKU-Talk by Josie Hamper, University of Oxford

Apps, ads and the digitalisation of reproductive work

For more information about registration, please contact Sarah Frances Homewood at sfh@di.ku.dk.

Abstract: It is well established that phones have been enrolled into the most intimate parts of everyday life. In this presentation, I reflect on ten years of researching the social, cultural and ethical consequences of digitally mediated reproductive technologies and practices. To do this, I draw on material from three research areas: the first explores the content and use of fertility tracking apps in the context of aiding conception; the second explores the content and use of pregnancy apps to follow a pregnancy over time; and the third explores how reproduction (fertility, pregnancy and birth) is visualised in advertisements for reproductive technologies and services on social media. While different, I argue that these phone-based apps and advertisements are intimately involved in the dual intensification and expansion of reproductive work, where women (primarily, but not only) are drawn into an ever-increasing range of self-care activities to protect their assumed reproductive potential. Three conceptual lenses structure my analysis, which centres around bodies, space and time.

Bio: Josie Hamper's research focuses on the embodied experiences, knowledge and practices that emerge at the intersection between new technology, health and medicine. Her published work explores how people engage with health and medical technologies, information and imagery, and how digital visualisations (such as fertility monitoring data or images of embryos and foetuses) travel through people's social worlds. Drawing on her qualitative work with fertility patients, Josie has advised the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and contributed to the Women's Health Strategy for England (2021). https://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/jhamper.html