Marianne Clark | The University of New South Wales; University of Sydney (original) (raw)

Papers by Marianne Clark

BACKGROUND Wearable fitness trackers are becoming increasingly affordable and accessible making t... more BACKGROUND Wearable fitness trackers are becoming increasingly affordable and accessible making them an alluring tool for mHealth interventions and strategies. Research to date has focused primarily on issues of efficacy, accuracy and acceptability with equivocal conclusions, yet little is known about how individuals interpret and make sense of their personalized data in relationship to health. This knowledge could elaborate on existing understandings of user experience and enhance the design and implementation of mHealth initiatives involving self-tracking technology. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of how university students respond to and interpret personalized data generated by wearable activity-trackers in relation to health. METHODS Data were collected through four focus groups (N=26) with university students in New Zealand who voluntarily wore a Fitbit for 7 days for a separate research study. Focus group questions sought to explore how students engaged with and made sense of their digital data in relationship to health and physical activity and their perceptions of the value of the Fitbit. RESULTS Findings suggest wearing an activity tracker can prompt both positive and negative emotional responses that influence interpretation of data and have implications for behavior change. Results also show that data interpretation is highly dependent on contextual factors and that meanings of health are highly individual. Participants suggested that the knowledge gained through self-tracking was not sufficient to prompt behavior change, and that further support around navigating barriers to physical activity was needed. CONCLUSIONS Acknowledging the emotional responses evoked by digital data may enhance the design of future mHealth initiatives involving self-tracking technologies. Providing guidance and support around data interpretation may also help maximize the usefulness of these technologies, as the meanings of health-related data appear to be contingent upon the context in which it is generated and interpreted.

New Media & Society, Mar 18, 2022

Digital self-tracking devices increasingly inhabit everyday landscapes, yet many people abandon s... more Digital self-tracking devices increasingly inhabit everyday landscapes, yet many people abandon self-trackers not long after acquisition. Although research has examined why people discontinue these devices, less explores what actually happens when people unplug. This article addresses this gap by considering the embodied and habitual dimensions of self-tracking and discontinuance. We consider the potential for digital data – and their unanticipated affects – to linger within habitual practices even after the device is abandoned. We draw on the philosophies of Felix Ravaisson and Gilles Deleuze to understand habit as a capacity for change, rather than a performance of sameness. We trace how self-tracking prompts new embodiments that continue to unfold even after people disengage. In decentring the device as our object of attention, we trouble the logic that self-tracking simply ‘stops’ in its absence. This holds implications for theorizing human–digital relations and for how self-tracking health interventions are implemented and evaluated.

Emerald Publishing Limited eBooks, Apr 14, 2023

New femininities in digital, physical and sporting cultures, 2020

In this chapter, we explore the potential of using new materialisms to think about the environmen... more In this chapter, we explore the potential of using new materialisms to think about the environment from a non-anthropocentric view. We begin this chapter by summarizing some of the main contributions from Indigenous scholarship, environmental humanities, and ecofeminism, before highlighting the ways in which new materialisms mirror, and in some cases, extend these lines of thought. While there are various strands of thought within new materialisms, herein we focus on the important contributions of Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, and Stacy Alaimo who have been particularly instrumental in advancing our thinking about human-environment relations. This is followed by a more specific review of research on sport and the environment, including recent new materialist-inspired approaches. The second half of this chapter explores the challenges of representing nature, and the ethics of voice, in new materialisms. Taking inspiration from those who are advancing performative and postpresentational approaches, we then share insights into our collaborative and creative writing practices during the Australian bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. In offering two pieces from our collaborative ‘poetic inquiry’, we attempt to show (rather than tell) our living and moving bodies as always entangled with the environment. We conclude with some reflections on how such new materialist and postqualitative approaches enabled new noticings, vital respondings, and thus feminist ethics and response-abilities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFRAGwH8UOY&list=PLdbxSLlj0ri04cOHxK37TfaQg0IAv6Znf&index=7

Sport Education and Society, Apr 16, 2021

ABSTRACT Written at a time when new ways of knowing, relating and responding to the environment a... more ABSTRACT Written at a time when new ways of knowing, relating and responding to the environment appear more urgent than ever, this paper explores the potential of using new materialist theory for more-than-human understandings of sport and the environment. The paper consists of three parts. We begin by reviewing key trends in research on sport and the environment, before signaling the recent turn towards new materialist ontological principles to explore the intra-actions between sport, physical leisure and the natural environment. We then turn specifically to feminist new materialisms to examine the important contributions such theoretical strands offer for rethinking human and nonhuman entanglements with the environment. In the third and final part we take inspiration from feminist new materialisms to propose a research imaginary aimed towards opening new ‘lines of flight’ in sport and environment research, praxis and pedagogies, particularly in relation to: (i) methods, (ii) modes of representation, (iii) ethical understandings, and (iv) teaching tools. In so doing, we hope this paper encourages others to explore how feminist new materialist approaches might enable new noticings, vital respondings, and thus feminist ethics and response-abilities to (and with) the environments that our sporting and movement practices are already entangled.

Routledge eBooks, Jun 14, 2022

$Research paper thumbnail of OBGYNs of TikTok and the role of misinformation in diffractive knowledge production$

Journal of Sociology, Nov 7, 2022

SSM - Qualitative Research in Health, Jun 1, 2023

Feminist New Materialisms, Sport and Fitness: A Lively Entanglement explores the interaction betw... more Feminist New Materialisms, Sport and Fitness: A Lively Entanglement explores the interaction between technology and physically active humans, with a particular focus on sport and feminist concepts....

Online Information Review, Jul 8, 2022

PurposeIn this article, the authors aim to explore mobile apps as both mundane and extraordinary ... more PurposeIn this article, the authors aim to explore mobile apps as both mundane and extraordinary digital media artefacts, designed and promoted to improve or solve problems in people's lives. Drawing on their “App Stories” project, the authors elaborate on how the efficiencies and affordances credited to technologies emerge and are performed through the specific embodied practices that constitute human–app relationships.Design/methodology/approachThe project involved short written accounts in an online survey from 200 Australian adults about apps. Analysis was conducted from a sociomaterial perspective, surfacing the emotional and embodied responses to and engagements with the apps; the relational connections described between people and their apps or with other people or objects; and what the apps enabled or motivated people to do.FindingsFindings point to three salient concerns about apps: (1) the need for efficiency; (2) the importance and complexity of human relationships and maintaining these connections; and (3) the complex relationships people have with their bodies. These concerns are expressed through themes that reflect how everyday efficiencies are produced through human–app entanglements; apps as relational agents; apps' ability to know and understand users; and future app imaginaries.Originality/valueThis project explores the affective and embodied dimensions of app use and thinks through the tensions between the extraordinary and mundane dimensions of contemporary techno-social landscapes, reflecting on how apps “matter” in everyday life. Our analysis surfaces the active role of the body and bodily performances in the production of app efficiencies and underlines the ways mobile apps are always situated in relation to other media and materialities.

Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism, 2022

Feminist New Materialisms, Sport and Fitness, 2020

Limbs yearning to stretch. Waiting for the skies to clear, if just for a brief moment, to push th... more Limbs yearning to stretch. Waiting for the skies to clear, if just for a brief moment, to push the door open, to breathe deeply without fear of contamination. From ash particles in the air, to bodies dispersing invisible viruses. The moving body is noticed differently. Athletes stranded, sports events postponed, new questions without answers. Yoga classes cancelled, gyms and swimming centres closed. Walking, cycling, jogging-everyday physical activities, once taken for granted, now constrained within familiar spaces made strange. Deep longings to run, leap, and jump freely, without the draw of pollutants and toxins into the lungs. The surfaces and objects of everyday life, all holding the possibility for foreign bodies entering silently, dangerously. Responding to the tingling of desire in her muscles, she pushes away from the computer that is both critical to her social connections and productivity and a source of sadness, panic, and despair. Images of death and destruction increasingly fill the screen. Picking up the phone always at her side, in her palm, at her fingertips, tucking it into the plastic sleeve on her arm. Stepping out into empty streets, to run with and away from ever building anxiety in her chest, and adrenaline and cortisol surging through her veins. But the light thud of her shoes, connecting with asphalt, familiar rhythms offering momentary calm.

This literature has largely focused on critiquing the idealized exceedingly thin, delicate, and l... more This literature has largely focused on critiquing the idealized exceedingly thin, delicate, and long limbed ballet body as an oppressive body. This doctoral project examines the experiences of adolescent girls who dance in the commercial dance studio. It seeks to expand the understandings and critiques of ballet that have focused on the representational ballet body. This dissertation was guided by the work of French poststructuralist philosopher Michel Foucault and his concepts of disciplinary power, discourse, and the self to address my overarching question: How do girls who dance in a commercial dance studio construct the self through the moving body? To answer this question I conducted a case study (Stake, 2005) of one advanced level ballet class at a dance studio in a large Western Canadian city. Empirical material was collected through ix TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction.

Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 2010

Background:The purposes of this study were to determine if a) gender moderated the relationship b... more Background:The purposes of this study were to determine if a) gender moderated the relationship between self-efficacy and physical activity (PA) among youth in Alberta, Canada, and, alternatively b) if self-efficacy mediated the relationship between gender and PA.Methods:A novel web-based tool was used to survey a regionally diverse sample of 4779 students (boys = 2222, girls = 2557) from 117 schools in grades 7 to 10 (mean age = 13.64 yrs.). Among other variables, students were asked about their PA and self-efficacy for participating in PA.Results:Based upon a series of multilevel analyses, self-efficacy was found to be a significantly stronger correlate of PA for girls. But, boys had significantly higher self-efficacy compared with girls, which resulted in significantly more PA.Conclusions:Findings suggest self-efficacy is an important correlate of PA among adolescent girls but that boys are more physically active because they have more self-efficacy for PA.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2020

Context: This scoping review examines the literature as it relates to autonomous vehicles and imp... more Context: This scoping review examines the literature as it relates to autonomous vehicles and impact on movement behavior (i.e., physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep) or mode choice (e.g., public transit), beliefs about movement behavior or mode choice, or impact on environments that may influence movement behavior or mode choice. Evidence acquisition: A search was conducted in June 2018 and updated in August 2019 of numerous databases (e.g., SPORTDiscuss, PubMed, and Scopus) and hand searching using terms such as autonomous cars and walking. Documents were included if they were databased studies, published in English, and related to the research question. They were then coded by 6 reviewers for characteristics of the document, design, sample, autonomous vehicles, movement behavior, and findings. The coding and analysis were conducted between August 2018 and September 2019. Evidence synthesis: Of 1,262 possible studies, 192 remained after a title and abstract scan, and 70 were included after a full-article scan. Most of the studies were conducted in Europe (42%) or North America (40%), involved simulation modeling (50%) or cross-sectional (34%) designs, and were published mostly in transportation (83%) journals or reports. Of the 252 findings, 61% related to movement behavior or mode choice. Though the findings were equivocal in some cases, impacts included decreased demand for active transportation, increased demand for autonomous vehicles, increased sitting and sleeping, and reduced walking. Conclusions: Though no experimental or longitudinal studies have been published to date, the available research suggests that autonomous vehicles will impact aspects of mode choice and the built environment of people residing in much of the developed world, resulting in reduced walking and more sitting.

Summary This article highlights research in Edmonton, Alberta that used key stakeholder perspecti... more Summary This article highlights research in Edmonton, Alberta that used key stakeholder perspectives to examine factors that promote or prevent the development of neighbourhoods in urban areas where walking, being active, and buying healthy, affordable food are easy.