The Quantified Self: Surveillance, Biopolitics and Literary Resistance
Abstract
In this chapter, I examine the biopolitical aspects of the quantified self, shedding light on theories of subjectivity implied in the self-tracking culture with reference to Foucault’s take on biopolitics/biopower and current surveillance discourses against the backdrop of COVID-19. I argue that the quantified self enables biometric surveillance and facilitates the implementation of health policies. The promise of autonomy underlying the quantified self is disavowed as deceptive, since ultimately algorithms take over and control self-trackers. In my discussion of Marc-Uwe Kling’s novel QualityLand (2017) as an example of a critical engagement with dystopian repercussions of the quantified self in contemporary literature, I show that quantification has reached yet another level, as individuals are dispossessed of their selfhood and continuously datafied in an automated world of optimization. QualityLand is a redesigned country; in this near-future dystopian world all cities are renamed, the surnames of the inhabitants indicate the occupation of the same-sex parent at the time of conception, and payments are made by kissing a touch pad. In QualityLand humans deliberately give up control over their life to opaque algorithms. No area of life is left out, everything is taken over by digitalization and surveillance: physical and emotional states are tracked; children are sedated with hormones at the push of a button; a robot nanny takes care of the offspring. Self-tracking technologies, e.g., smart phones or digital assistants, are turning human life into assemblages of data (Lupton 2015). Kling’s novel is a critical account of how humans have become data themselves which corporations such as Google and Facebook sell to their customers. QualityLand is a satirical dystopia that offers a cultural critique on how continuous quantification leads “societies towards total algorithmic control” (Couldry and Mejias).
Abstract
In this chapter, I examine the biopolitical aspects of the quantified self, shedding light on theories of subjectivity implied in the self-tracking culture with reference to Foucault’s take on biopolitics/biopower and current surveillance discourses against the backdrop of COVID-19. I argue that the quantified self enables biometric surveillance and facilitates the implementation of health policies. The promise of autonomy underlying the quantified self is disavowed as deceptive, since ultimately algorithms take over and control self-trackers. In my discussion of Marc-Uwe Kling’s novel QualityLand (2017) as an example of a critical engagement with dystopian repercussions of the quantified self in contemporary literature, I show that quantification has reached yet another level, as individuals are dispossessed of their selfhood and continuously datafied in an automated world of optimization. QualityLand is a redesigned country; in this near-future dystopian world all cities are renamed, the surnames of the inhabitants indicate the occupation of the same-sex parent at the time of conception, and payments are made by kissing a touch pad. In QualityLand humans deliberately give up control over their life to opaque algorithms. No area of life is left out, everything is taken over by digitalization and surveillance: physical and emotional states are tracked; children are sedated with hormones at the push of a button; a robot nanny takes care of the offspring. Self-tracking technologies, e.g., smart phones or digital assistants, are turning human life into assemblages of data (Lupton 2015). Kling’s novel is a critical account of how humans have become data themselves which corporations such as Google and Facebook sell to their customers. QualityLand is a satirical dystopia that offers a cultural critique on how continuous quantification leads “societies towards total algorithmic control” (Couldry and Mejias).
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Health and Biopolitics in COVID-19 Times – What Constitutes a Healthy Society? 1
- Preliminary Remarks for a Biopolitical History of Western Plague Narratives 25
- How to Manage Plague and COVID-19: Parallels and Differences Between Today and Premodern and Early-Modern Medical Theories 47
- “Civilization is Sterilization”: Utopia, Biopolitics and the Total Society in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World 59
- COVID-19 as Event: Mythology and Ritual in Agamben’s Pandemic Dispatches 91
- Biopolitics, Form-of-Life, A New Use of Bodies 111
- The Relationality and Representability of Biopolitical Crises 133
- State Control Versus Humanity: Biopolitics and Health in Juli Zeh’s The METHOD (Corpus Delicti, 2009) 155
- The Quantified Self: Surveillance, Biopolitics and Literary Resistance 183
- When “Total War” Joins “People’s War”: China’s Recent Surge of Biopolitics and Its Repercussions in Internet Poetry 205
- Inside in Immunity, Outside in Community? Discussing Esposito and Framing Pandemic Polemics in France 233
- Needful Facts, Big and Small: On Bodies, Equality, and Treatment 251
- About the Authors 265
- Index 271
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Health and Biopolitics in COVID-19 Times – What Constitutes a Healthy Society? 1
- Preliminary Remarks for a Biopolitical History of Western Plague Narratives 25
- How to Manage Plague and COVID-19: Parallels and Differences Between Today and Premodern and Early-Modern Medical Theories 47
- “Civilization is Sterilization”: Utopia, Biopolitics and the Total Society in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World 59
- COVID-19 as Event: Mythology and Ritual in Agamben’s Pandemic Dispatches 91
- Biopolitics, Form-of-Life, A New Use of Bodies 111
- The Relationality and Representability of Biopolitical Crises 133
- State Control Versus Humanity: Biopolitics and Health in Juli Zeh’s The METHOD (Corpus Delicti, 2009) 155
- The Quantified Self: Surveillance, Biopolitics and Literary Resistance 183
- When “Total War” Joins “People’s War”: China’s Recent Surge of Biopolitics and Its Repercussions in Internet Poetry 205
- Inside in Immunity, Outside in Community? Discussing Esposito and Framing Pandemic Polemics in France 233
- Needful Facts, Big and Small: On Bodies, Equality, and Treatment 251
- About the Authors 265
- Index 271
