Graduation Year
2019
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree
Ph.D.
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Degree Granting Department
English
Major Professor
Carl Herndl, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Steven Jones, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Margarethe Kusenbach, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Lisa Meloncon, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Ali Yalcin, Ph.D.
Keywords
Agency, New Materialism, Triathlon, Wearables, Actor Network Theory
Abstract
Wearable technologies are being adopted in increasing numbers and the market space appears poised for continued growth in virtually all areas, from medicine, to self-quantification, to sports. While the overwhelming majority of work on wearables has been done on their medical applications and their role in shaping identity, this dissertation examines the roles that wearable technologies play on the decision-making processes in athletic contexts. Using new materialism and Actor Network Theory as lenses, I attempt to break from the Cartesian model that places human subjectivity and intentionality at the center of a rhetorical situation and, rather, allow that non-human actants are agentive. I examine the interactions that age-group triathletes have with their wearable technologies and the shifting agencies that accompany those interactions. These interactions call on disparate human and non-human actors in forming a series of temporary, shifting networks that utilize a distributed agency in the decision making process.
Scholar Commons Citation
Repici, Michael, "Because My Garmin Told Me To: A New Materialist Study of Agency and Wearable Technology" (2019). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/7905
