Towards diffractive ways of knowing women's moving bodies: A baradian experiment with the fitbit-motherhood entanglement

Abstract

This article presents a diffractive experiment in thinking about mothers' engagements with self-tracking technologies as materially and discursively produced phenomena. Inspired by St. Pierre's claim that any empirical adventure with new materialisms must begin by living with theory, we share our feminist, collaborative journey with Fitbits and Karen Barad's agential realism to consider what might emerge when we begin thinking and living with concepts such as diffraction, entanglement, and intra-action. Unfolding within the uncertain intersections of theory, method, and data, our diffractive methodology prompted understandings of maternal, moving bodies as entangled agencies in continuous states of becoming and fostered generative feminist relationships that allowed us to embrace new ways of thinking, knowing, and being.