This talk draws from more-than-human perspectives to imagine the ways digital technologies and social media become part of the material and affective landscapes of motherhood. 

Drawing from an empirical study conducted in Aotearoa New, this presentation explores how women’s narratives of digital self-tracking experiences render visible the physical and emotional ‘work’ of motherhood. 

Guided by feminist new materialist and STS frameworks (Donna Haraway and Karen Barad) Marianne examines how the biological, socio-cultural and technological become entangled through everyday embodied practices and how these practices come to matter in the lives of mothers, their families and children. 

Discussion will also consider the connective and expressive affordances of social media and other online platforms for both shaping and resisting notions of ‘fit’ motherhood.

Bio

Marianne Clark is a postdoctoral fellow in the Vitalities Lab, UNSW, Sydney. 

Her research focuses on girls' and women’s embodied experiences of physical activity and health. She is particularly interested in the body as a socially, biologically and culturally produced entity. 

More recently, her interests have expanded to include the role of digital technologies and media spaces in shaping experiences of health and health-related knowledges. 

Marianne’s research is informed by feminist, poststructuralist and new materialist perspectives and she enjoys experimenting with innovative qualitative methodologies. 

Her work appears in BioSocieties, Health, Qualitative Research in Health Sport and Exercise and she is the author of the recently published Feminist New Materialisms, Fitness and Health: A Lively Entanglement (Palgrave Macmillan).