Abstract
In recent years, new forms of self-tracking technologies, advanced algorithms and quantified measurements have increasingly become part of interventions targeting the physical improvement of elderly bodies. This has led authors to argue that the latter are not just ‘busy’ bodies (Katz 2000) but ‘busier and smarter bodies,’ as well as being nodes for data collection, monitoring and surveillance designed to promote physical functioning (Katz and Marshall 2018). The article qualifies the argument by examining concrete encounters in which frail elderly bodies are made to move and transform in digital rehabilitation programs in the Danish welfare state. The study mobilizes Bennett’s (2009) notion of the ‘vitality of materiality’ as an analytic lens, thus highlighting the agentic capacities of technologies and the fleshy-sensual, lively force of the body itself. Drawing on ethnographic material, the article traces how movement is impacted by the links and forces generated by a specific digital rehabilitation assemblage. This emphasizes the fluidity of relational connections between bodies and digital dataflows, meanwhile demonstrating that the vital force of the aging body is expressed through sensory pain when the temporality of the metrics and the rate of bodily recovery are out of alignment. In contrast to studies focusing on surveillance as a pre-given disciplining force, the vital materialism approach invites us to think about surveillance as a vibrant, open-ended and temporally specific process whose outcome is not predetermined. Finally, it is argued that, to develop processes leading to bodily restoration rather than disruption, greater attention to sensory expression is needed – among professionals, IT workers and the elderly alike – combined with a willingness to adjust the assemblage continually to align metrics with rates of bodily recovery.
Highlights
Background and MethodologyLike many countries in the world, Denmark faces the challenge of demographic aging due to the increasing longevity of its citizens; it is expected that the cost of care for the elderly and those with chronic diseases will rise significantly in the future (Danish Government 2016)
Applying Bennett’s (2005) notion of vital materialism, I suggest that surveillance operates through a wide assemblage of human and non-human actors, and is better understood as a complex accomplishment than an a priori fact. This understanding invites us to think about surveillance in the context of digital rehabilitation as a specific, vibrant and temporal process through which frail bodies, metrics and technologies are assembled together and produce various bodily sensations
Applying the frame of vital materialism, we can likewise think of digital rehabilitation as constituted through temporal assemblages of human and non-human actors that are interlinked by the goal of moving and transforming bodies in order to rebuild their functionality
Summary
Using the lens of the ‘vitality of materiality’ (Bennet 2010, Bennett 2005, Bennet 2004) to analyze how bodies and digital data are entangled and constituted in digital physical rehabilitation programs, I place the strongest emphasis on two points that I find fruitful. Applying the frame of vital materialism, we can likewise think of digital rehabilitation as constituted through temporal assemblages of human (bodies, professionals) and non-human actors (smartphones, sensors, exercise programs, algorithms, digital interfaces, imaginaries of aging bodies, visions of automatization and cost-efficiency) that are interlinked by the goal of moving and transforming bodies in order to rebuild their functionality. In this view, bodily movement and processes of recovery must be considered fluid effects of the ways in which the different parts of the assemblage are connected, and the vital energies and affective relations the assemblage creates as a whole. The relational connections between the various elements in digital rehabilitation programs are assembled, disassembled and reassembled over time, which allows us to think about surveillance as a specific, open-ended and temporal process whose outcome is not predetermined
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