Bringers of Order : Wearable Technologies and the Manufacturing of Everyday Life.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gilmore, James N.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wearable technology--Social aspects--21st century.

Wearable technology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (287 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2025.

Summary:

Wearable technology, including smartwatches, biometric trackers, and body cameras, are often touted as helpful tools that record, produce, and analyze data about daily life to improve our individual habits and health or to solve serious public issues. In this book, James N. Gilmore argues that these lofty promises mask forms of surveillance and power. Charting the implementation of wearables in areas of accessibility, health, sports, labor, law enforcement, and infrastructure, Gilmore demonstrates how these devices have been positioned as authoritative means for producing knowledge about human activity. Drawing on news reporting, advertising, film and television, company reports, and legal policies, he shows how this knowledge production reproduces three distinct modes of power: normalcy, surveillance, and solutionism. Bringers of Order empowers readers to examine the complicated ways our devices reshape how we think about our lives and our ethics and why we should resist companies analyzing our personal data.

Contents:

Introduction : bringing order to life

Health, or : bringing the hospital to the wrist

Accessibility, or : personalization and the promotion of hearables

Sport, or : monitoring physical activity on and off the field

Labor, or : workplace surveillance down to the millisecond

Law enforcement, or : the opacity of body-worn cameras in upstate South Carolina

Infrastructure, or : the datafication of Disney World

Conclusion : culture, or : order as a way of life.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Gilmore, James N. Bringers of Order

ISBN:

9780520410152

OCLC:

1472989977