RESEARCH//PROJECTS
the high stakes of tracking menstruation
This report explains what cycle tracking apps are and why people use them, what data they collect, and who accesses it. Taking a data justice approach, this report maps out what is at stake for individuals and society in the Global North when menstrual data is collected and sold at scale. The aim is to inform both individuals using apps, along with stakeholders from civil society organisations, policy makers, and industry.
The report will published by the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy on June 11.
AI4TRUST.
AI4TRUST: AI-based-technologies for trustworthy solutions against disinformation is a Horizon Europe project that aims to build trustworthy AI solutions for stakeholders engaged in countering mis/dis/malinformation across Europe. As part of a research consortium with 17 partners, my work focuses on conducting qualitative fieldwork with stakeholders working against mis/dis/malinformation in Europe. My research aims to understand (1) how people use AI tools in their work, (2) how they assess trustworthiness of technologies in their work, and (3) how we can improve the ways in which we build AI tools.
I also work on researcher access to data, a fundamental challenge our project seeks to address and tackle.
Data Flows & Menstruation.
My PhD project investigated how users of cycle trackers learn about their bodies and menstruation through apps and how they understand and navigate data commodification in their everyday lives. Guided by Participatory Action Research methodologies (PAR), I interviewed 30 app users in Vienna. Through a data justice lens, I introduce questions of power inequalities to discourses on privacy, moving beyond a focus on individual rights and ownership over data to address material aspects of and injustices built into data infrastructures.
My PhD is available to read on the University of Cambridge’s Online Repository.
menstruation & sounds.
For most people learning about their periods neither delights nor captivates. Instead, it is often a frustrating and lonely process and surprisingly difficult. Knowledge about menstruation is inaccessible, dominated by disinformation, limited to an either statistical or biological framing of menstrual cycles, or centred around period products.
Technological innovations such as cycle tracking apps have been developed to intervene in this context with a promise to provide users with the knowledge over their cycles they so urgently lack. Cycle tracking makes the abstract processes of menstrual cycles perceptible in a tangible way. Nevertheless these technologies further engender a solitary engagement with menstrual cycles which centres a normative and statistical lens of menstrual cycles. Simultaneously the datafication of menstrual cycles enables the commodification of this data: driven by a business strategy dominated by logics of data extraction, companies extract users personal data for profit—often without their active knowledge or meaningful consent.
This workshop series aims to explore alternative pathways to understanding and engaging with menstrual cycles beyond prescriptive quantitative and statistical approaches. The workshops create a space for exploration through the medium of sound, to visualise and 'sonify' menstruation without the limits of commodification in the context of data capitalism. The aim is to create a collective environment for participants to exchange and share experiences that might “captivate and delight.” (Clancy 2023) and to develop a soundscape of menstrual cycles.
tactical tech fellowship.
As part of a fellowship organised through the ESRC, I translated insights from my doctoral research into two guides for the organisation’s Data Detox Kit. The guides aim to explain to users of period tracking apps how to identify a safe menstrual tracking option (Cycles of Influence) and how to navigate the privacy policies of period tracking apps (None of Their Business).
I also published an article ‘Cycles of Control’ on the larger dynamics of reproductive surveillance, explaining how menstrual and reproductive health data are collected, commodified, and surveilled by both private companies and, in some contexts, governments.
