Incollection,
Measuring the Entrepreneur of Himself : Gendered Quantification in the Self-Tracking Discourse
Lifelogging : Digital self-tracking and Lifelogging – between disruptive technology and cultural transformation, chapter 14, Springer VS, Wiesbaden, (2016)
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-13137-1_14
Abstract
On the basis of different examples the article shows that the practices of self-tracking are essentially a rationalisation of self-optimization. As such they can be analysed adequately with the Foucauldian theorem of the entrepreneur of himself. Consequentially the techniques of quantification that are central to self-tracking can be understood as a form of management accounting that allows for rational self-optimization. This rationality is in turn embedded in processes of gendering and degendering which are analysed here by an extrapolation of the construction of masculinity in the self-tracking discourse. Because of its emphasis on self-realization and economic rationality this construction can be identified as an enterprising masculinity.
