Know yourself (through data): Menstruation, Data Flows, and Immaterial Labour

周期跟踪应用程序是数据积累实践的核心，也是数据驱动的医学科学知识生产的核心。我想研究技术生产者和用户之间的关系，通过使用数据生产作为劳动的框架来分析周期跟踪应用程序如何通过数据驱动的客观性话语将自己作为女性身体和生殖知识的网站。我研究德国和埃及的女性如何使用这些应用程序，以及这如何改变她们对自己和身体的理解。我初步确定了两个应用程序在全球北部：线索和辉光。我采用了多种方法：民族志的方法和演练的方法，研究如何在开罗和柏林35岁以下的年轻女性使用这两个时期的跟踪应用程序。我的研究填补了关于自我跟踪的文献中的一个重要空白，该文献侧重于全球北方和英语国家，并将女性的声音带到了关于数据市场和当前数据驱动知识生产的全球对话中。我问，使用这些应用程序的女性是否能在这个商品化数据的空间中导航，在这个空间中，输入数据所花费的时间和精力是无形的，而这种劳动的价值只是涓滴到她们身上？经期追踪器被宣传为关于女性身体的中立、客观、数据驱动的知识来源，它能帮助女性控制或了解自己的身体吗？

Period tracking applications are at the centre of data accumulation practices and at the heart of data-driven medical scientific knowledge production. I want to research the relationships between technology producers and users by using aframing of data production as labour to analyse how period tracking applications situate themselves as sites ofknowledge over women's bodies and reproduction through discourses of data-driven objectivity. I study how women inGermany and Egypt use these applications and how this changes how they understand themselves and their bodies. Ipreliminarily identified two applications produced in the Global North: Clue and Glow. I employ a mix of methods: anethnographic approach and the walkthrough method, to study how young women under 35 in Cairo and Berlin use thesetwo period tracking applications. My research fills an important gap in the literature on self-tracking which is focused onthe Global North and English-speaking countries and brings women's voices to the global conversation about datamarkets and the current moment of data-driven knowledge production. I ask do women using the applications navigatethis space of commodified data in which the time and effort spent inputting data is rendered invisible and the value of thislabour merely trickles down to them? Do period trackers, advertised as neutral, objective, data-driven sources ofknowledge over women's bodies, help women to gain control or knowledge over their bodies?