Tracing the feedback loop: a Foucauldian and actor-network-theory examination of heart rate monitors in a physical education classroom

ABSTRACT

As digital tracking technologies such as heart rate monitors are being implemented into physical education classrooms with increased frequency, ‘techno-enthusiasts’ and ‘sceptics’ alike are attempting to understand the implications of these practices. Focusing on heart rate monitors in physical education, I utilize Foucauldian theories and actor-network-theory to extend the scholarship within the sociology of sport and physical education literature that has studied the relationship between technologies and the (in)active body. To better understand how the feedback loop of heart rate monitoring functions in the university-level physical education class that was studied here—or indeed, does not function—I consider the material-semiotic networks that variously form or fail to form alliances through the feedback loop of heart rate monitoring. These include the numerous technologies and bodies that are a part of this assemblage, an interest in heart rate data, and knowledge about heart rate. I conclude by arguing that we need to move beyond the techno-utopian/techno-dystopian dualism that often frames examinations of technology in PE.

KEYWORDS:

• Quantified Self
• sociomaterialisms
• actor-network-theory
• physical education
• technology
• sociology of sport
• Foucault

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Shannon Jette, David L. Andrews, Zack Beauchamp, Angela Woodside, Gavin Weedon, and her colleagues in Physical Cultural Studies at the University of Maryland for their contributions to earlier versions of this paper. Thank you to the editors of Sport, Education and Society, and the anonymous reviewers, for their substantive engagement and thoughtful comments that helped to improve the manuscript. Finally, thank you to the instructor and the jogging class that are examined in this article for allowing her to run with you, talk with you, and learn from you.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Katelyn Esmonde http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3437-2921

Notes

1 All names used are pseudonyms.

2 The spelling and grammar of the heart rate assignments is replicated here.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Flagship Fellowship Program of the University of Maryland Graduate School.