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中心，也是数据驱动的医学科学知识生产的核心。我想要研究技术生产者和使用者之间的关系，把对数据生产的恐惧作为劳动力，分析时期跟踪应用程序如何通过数据驱动的客观性的论述，将自己定位为妇女身体上的知识和生殖的场所。我研究了德国和埃及的女性如何使用这些应用程序，以及这如何改变了她们对自己和自己身体的理解。我初步确定了在全球北部生产的两个应用程序：Clue和Glow。我使用了一种混合的方法：人种学方法和漫游方法，来研究开罗和柏林35岁以下的年轻女性如何使用这两个时期跟踪应用程序。我的研究填补了有关自我跟踪的文献中的一个重要空白，该文献主要关注全球北方国家和英语国家，并在有关数据市场和数据驱动的知识生产的当前时刻的全球对话中引入了女性的声音。我问，使用应用程序的女性是否浏览了这个商品化的数据空间，在这个空间中，输入数据所花费的时间和精力变得看不见，而这个空间的价值只是涓涓细流到她们手中？被宣传为中性的、客观的、数据驱动的女性身体知识来源的经期跟踪器，是否帮助女性获得对自己身体的控制或知识？

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?