Bodies of Data: The Power of Female Technology in Sexual and Reproductive Health in Kenya's 'Silicon Savannah'

The project explores the relationship between recent technology designed for women's needs (FemTech) and notions of control and power over women's bodies. Fieldwork in Nairobi's 'Silicon Savannah’ and in informal settlements on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) health technologies created by women-led FemTech enterprises. The affordable/accessible solutions enable women to make informed health choices, especially in developing context, by sharing personal data. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of biopower, Repo’s account of gender as new mode of life-administering force and insights on surveillance capitalism, the thesis analyses users’ socio-technical practices and entrepreneurs’ consideration of women’s bodies as opportunities for commodification. It discusses how FemTech enterprises can drive ‘girl-centred’ development through both empowerment and commercialisation incentives and illuminates how biopower and social governance resurface in a new and gender-specific context, seeing women as ‘Bodies of Data’.