# Prag 18-21 AUGUST 2020

**Abstract Deadline 29 Feb [Link zum Call](https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/call-for-papers-and-panels/)**

Please provide a brief description or abstract (maximum of 250 words). Your abstract should contain **a summary of the paper's main arguments and methodology**, as well as a **brief discussion of its contribution to STS**.

## Drafting an abstract

**Title** “Body Literacy through Collective Tech Spaces”

What happens if you invite feminist hackers, technologists, designers and researchers to speculate about health technologies and explore materials and production processes for rethinking body knowledge in the context of sexual health. We are exploring the potentials arising from free software and free fabrication infrastructures in the realm of gender to envision other possibilities of health technologies. Technological artifacts, that refer to a different kind of approach towards body knowledge and self-determination that doesn’t exclude the collectivity, the social, cultural or even political entanglement of health, body and mind.

The pledge of precision attached to quantification leads to a lack of trust in self-knowledge, own body awareness and the over-reliance on technology, which in turn makes users vulnerable. Self-observation and a vagueness of qualitative self-knowledge could serve as an alternative to the notion of universality and determinism.

This paper reflects upon our practice-based research in a series of varying workshop settings, that stimulated interexchange on production of social meaning by materializing the contexts in which these discourses take place. The gatherings aim to encourage alleged lay people to engage with their bodies and getting knowledge specifically about menstrual and sexual health as techno-political territory. Demystifying technology in Do-It-With-Others spaces becomes a strategy to free oneself from knowledge hierarchies and production dynamics of the market. Narratives of technology can be appropriated to build artifacts that articulate dissent. The engagement with materiality is providing technology with one’s own narratives and shifts agency of all these discourses and the production of meaning to the person that makes.

At the end of the last millennium Haraway told us to look into the spectrum of the binaries between biology and technology, body and mind, nature and culture. We aim to look beyond dichotomies of expertise versus lay knowledge, quantitative versus qualitative data.
_________

1. We – Marie Dietze & Marie Kochsiek – strive for exploring the potentials of using open soft- and hardware to envision other possibilities of health technologies. The production possibilities arising from free software and free fabrication infrastructures in the realm of gender and technologies refer to a different kind of body knowledge, a different way of self-determination that doesn't exclude the collectivity, the social, cultural or even political entanglement of health, the body and the mind.

What happens if you invite hackers, technologists, designers and researchers to speculate about health technologies and explore materials for rethinking body knowledge in the context of sexual health.

Enabling exploration /
making materials /

- Workshops stimulated interexchange in particular way: connecting and/by/through materializing the contexts in which discourse takes place. social meaning – knowledge– that is solely distributed through sensual perception
- Narratives of technology could be appropriated to build artifacts that articulate dissent.
- Material engagement is providing technology with one’s own narratives, shifts agency of all these discourses and the production of meaning to the person that makes.

products tangible
pointing to what’s possible
with no claim to absolute or exclusive knowledge

creating safer space for engaging in

adding to a matrix of knowledge → highlighting autonomous expertise of own body knowledge

> // evtl. dann für Paper & Paper-presentation?:“female” knowledge and practice is devalued because it is seen as female task, male

2. With the means of maker, hacker and ad-hoc culture we have organised events/gatherings to facilitate new spaces for discussion, creation and reflection of technologies, sexualities and collectivites.

*Embracing DIY and DIT approaches the events aim to encourage seemingly lay people to engage with their bodies and getting knowledge specifically about menstrual and sexual health as techno-political territory.

democratizing medical knowledge through self-observation. The pledge attached to quantification leads to a lack of trust in self-knowledge, own body awareness and the over-reliance and ‘blind faith’ in truths of technology, which in turn makes users dependent and vulnerable. Self-observation and a vagueness of qualitative self-knowledge could serve as an alternative to quantification and the notion of universality and determinism that it brings along.

> *Demystifying technology in DIY and DIWO spaces (Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-With-Others) becomes a strategy to free oneself from knowledge hierarchies and production dynamics of the market. Through unorthodox design, technical artefacts can be freed from restrictive gender scripts. Insecurities and vulnerability, which are connected with the risk of exploring new paths and learning new skills, are compensated by a common physical safe space.*

3 At the end of the last millennium Donna Haraway told us to look into the spectrum of the binaries between biology and technology, between the body and the mind, between nature and culture or maybe even beyond. We aim to further this exploration towards looking beyond dichotomies of expertise versus lay knowledge, quantitative versus qualitative data.

making of technologies seen as a vivid and continuous process

By our action based research we carry out what STS proposes and is pointing to: critical reflection of tech blabla

### List of reference

- Gesche, Michelle, Florian u.a. "Design as research"
- Mareis: The Epistemology of the Unspoken: On the Concept of Tacit Knowledge in Contemporary Design Research
- Mareis: Entwerfen – Wissen – Produzieren. Designforschung im Anwendungskontext

## Brainstorming session 29.01.2020
- What
- How


Discussion spaces:
Biology x Technology
Nature x Culture
Body x Verstand

**BEN**
- zugänglichkeit
- open, access
- man bekommt nicht einfach etw. vorgesetzt
"durch dieses jene, blick dahinter, workshops, weil die sind wie sie sind,

createn wir neue diskussionsspaces, in form of embodied bliblublab

notion of expertise /of technology /of medicine

## Titel Ideen bzw. These bzw. *What*
What = evtl These

"Body literacy through collective tech spaces"
"Applying feminist pedagogies to practice based design research methods"

## Blurbs

- The research project focus on open hard- and software for menstrual and reproductive health. With the means of maker, hacker and ad-hoc culture, embracing DIY approach that encourages lay people to engage with their bodies and getting knowledge about it.

- Research team explored the production possibilities arising from free software and free fabrication infrastructures in the realm of gender and technologies. During the research project the politics of the body have been investigated through the focus of opening up female health care. Questioning power relations built in gynecology and modern health technologies. How can we open up and re-appropriate medical equipment to make it more accessible, legible and interpretable for the person affected? Which role does hardware play? How can we imagine non-invasive methods for looking at reproductive health and make this information tangible?
- With the means of maker, hacker and ad-hoc culture, the project aims to embrace a DIT (do it together) approach that encourages people to engage with their bodies and gaining knowledge about it.

planen wir die im Kontext von reproduktiver Gesundheit besonders relevanten Körperpolitiken zunächst sichtbar zu machen. Im Fokus steht dabei inwieweit neue Wissenszugänge zu Körpervorgängen wie Menstuationszyklus und Schwangerschaft geschaffen werden können. Im Kern geht es darum Wissenshierarchien in der Gynäkologie sowie durch Gesundheitstechnologien geprägte Machtverhältnisse zu hinterfragen, zu umgehen oder aufzubrechen. Wir wollen erforschen inwieweit medizinische Geräte im Kontext von reproduktiver Gesundheit für betroffene Personen und Laien zugänglich, les- und interpretierbar gemacht werden können. Welche Rolle kann dabei offene Soft- und Hardware spielen? Wie können wir uns nicht-invasive Methoden vorstellen, um die reproduktive Gesundheit zu untersuchen und diese Informationen greifbar zu machen? Mit den Mitteln und freien Infrastrukturen der Maker-, Hacker-Kultur zielt das Projekt auf einen DIT-Ansatz ("do it together") ab, der die Menschen dazu ermutigt, sich unabhängig von expliziten und impliziten Tabus mit ihrem Körper zu beschäftigen und Wissen darüber zu sammeln.

Im Kontext des breiteren Diskurses zur *Demokratisierung von Technologie* hinterfragen wir in Form von ad-hoc Prototypen *wem* jene Demokratisierung zuteil wird und möchten im Zeitraum von 7 Wochen neben multiplen Design Experimenten einen Beitrag zum Diskurs formulieren. „Mini-Hack“: eintägiger offener Workshop zum Experimentieren und Explorieren von (un)möglichen Zukünften reproduktiver Gesundheit und Souveränität.
Gen Ende der Residency wird eine Diskussionsrunde im Berlin Open Lab veranstaltet, welche verschiedene Perspektiven, wie jene aus Forschung, feministischer Theorie, Aktivismus und Öffentlichkeit zusammenbringt.

DIY & DIT blurbs
Demystifying technology in DIY and DIWO spaces (Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-With-Others) becomes a strategy to free oneself from knowledge hierarchies and production dynamics of the market. Through unorthodox design, technical artefacts can be freed from restrictive gender scripts. Insecurities and vulnerability, which are connected with the risk of exploring new paths and learning new skills, are compensated by a common physical safe space.

MiniHack Blurb
To explore the potentials of using Open Soft- and Hardware for envisioning other possibilities of health technologies, we emphasized on ovulation and the menstrual cycle as a techno-politcal territory. Because of long being niche technologies for decision-making powers in the tech world, period tracking apps have evolved to being part of the current default set of health apps, and Femtech is on the rise. Multiple products are flooding the market, promising to monitor PMS, ovulation and moods, to contracept and enhance people’s experience of their menstrual cycle. This context led us to speculate on ways to detect arguably obscure bodily processes like ovulation, in a (physically and confidentially) non-invasive way.

Self Observation blurbs
democratizing medical knowledge through self-observation. The pledge attached to quantification leads to a lack of trust in self-knowledge, own body awareness and the over-reliance and ‘blind faith’ in truths of technology, which in turn makes users dependent and vulnerable. Self-observation and a vagueness of qualitative self-knowledge could serve as an alternative to quantification and the notion of universality and determinism that it brings along. Exemplary for this approach is the self-examination of breasts for lumps to detect breast cancer early on; DIY-pregnancy tests, for people who, for various (local, social, family related) reasons, have no access to those from the pharmacy; or even the simple, yet spectacular screening technique using the low-cost agent vinegar, which, performed by non-medical personnel trained to deliver basic health care, already helped to reduce death rate related to cervical cancer in low-resource population of Indian women by 31%*. [*Quelle:Nelson, Roxanne. Cervical Cancer Screening With Vinegar Reduces Mortality, Medscape 2013, https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/805181].

Salivary ferning is typically observed in the context of menstrual cycle and therefore almost exclusively considered in relation to fertility. To avoid that we put a strong emphasize on the practice of self-observation for autonomous self-knowledge and self-care. After all, estrogen is a human hormone. In that respect it aimed to be important for people that are not having a menstrual cycle at all, people after menopause, people getting hormonal treatment. This approach can be seen as one way to understand and learn from the own body without being dependent upon commercial technology. Here participants also saw a chance to bypass exploitative products, systems and the „middle man“ and access information autonomously to then make informed decisions to go and see health-experts as nurses, voluntary-run health institutions, doctors et cetera.

## Short Bios

### Marie D
Marie is famous for being extra smart.

### Marie K

we would like to bring Marie Kochsiek in for short term Residency. Her background lies in social science and software development with a focus on menstrual health tracking technologies at the intersection of technology, health and feminism