Posthuman to Inhuman: mHealth Technologies and the Digital Health Assemblage

Abstract

In exploring the intra-active, relational and material connections between humans and non-humans, proponents of posthumanism advocate a questioning of the "human" beyond its traditional anthropocentric conceptualization. By referring specifically to controversial developments in mHealth applications, this paper critically diverges from posthuman accounts of human/non-human assemblages. Indeed, we argue that rather than "dissolving" the human subject, the power of assemblages lies in their capacity to highlight the antagonisms and contradictions that inherently affirm the importance of the subject. In outlining this claim, we propose a turn from the posthuman to the inhuman as a way of understanding the contemporary landscape of (digital) health.

Review of Matthew Flisfeder (2021). Algorithmic Desire: Towards a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media

“…Beyond the fact that social media algorithms have provided a unique space for perpetuating forms of online hate and discrimination (as denoted in the frequently cited, 'online echo chambers'), the potential for algorithms to calculate, measure, and record your location, as well as your 'mood' and health status, is now being manifested in the growing importance of algorithmic technologies in our day to day lives. Here, technological innovation is increasingly exposing the subject to new assemblages of algorithmic automation, resulting in a reconsideration of how we define, make sense of, and approach the 'human' (Beer 2023;Black and Cherrington 2022;Haraway 1991).…”

“…Beyond the fact that social media algorithms have provided a unique space for perpetuating forms of online hate and discrimination (as denoted in the frequently cited, 'online echo chambers'), the potential for algorithms to calculate, measure, and record your location, as well as your 'mood' and health status, is now being manifested in the growing importance of algorithmic technologies in our day to day lives. Here, technological innovation is increasingly exposing the subject to new assemblages of algorithmic automation, resulting in a reconsideration of how we define, make sense of, and approach the 'human' (Beer 2023;Black and Cherrington 2022;Haraway 1991).Despite such uses, for many, it is this very technology that is believed to be deepening our current social antagonisms and divisions, resulting in new forms of identarian politics that have ended-up coalescing in an online libertarian philosophy and untenable, far-right conspiracies. As a result, the potential benefits afforded to the algorithm-most notably, the capacity for our digital technologies to encourage an emancipatory egalitarianism-is now more likely to be cynically derided by those openly decrying the influence of digital media, while all the while remaining active participants in its various platforms (on most occasions, such cynicism is easily recited by 'us', its users).…”