Of Mobiles and Menses: Researching Period Tracking Apps and Issues of Response-Ability

This article is an attempt to identify and reflect upon the accountabilities and practices that arise from my research on menstrual apps. Employing Haraway’s concept of multispecies response-ability and drawing on the field diary that accompanied the research process, this text can be situated somewhere in between auto-ethnographical exploration and theoretical reasoning of how to determine responsibilities and implement ethical responses. After a short introduction of multispecies response-ability and period tracking apps, I pay close attention to my affective and sensory perceptions during the fieldwork. I then identify concrete practices of response-ability and acknowledge the limitations I have encountered in the field. Finally, I briefly draw on the figure of the cyborg to conceptualise the complex intertwinings of bodies and technologies.