Jungnickel, Kat; Fowles, Ellen; May, Katja and Pugh, Nikki, eds. 2024. Wearable Utopias: Imagining, Inventing, and Inhabiting New Worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262548250 [Edited Book] (In Press)

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Abstract or Description

Wearable Utopias explores the promise of wearables for reimagining social and political problems of today for diverse and inclusive worlds for tomorrow. Kat Jungnickel, Ellen Fowles, Katja May, and Nikki Pugh entangle science and technology studies, gender studies, and cultural studies with contemporary issues to highlight the role wearables can play in forging alternative paths through conventional landscapes. Featuring twenty-three interviews with new and established international designers, this collection covers everything from coats designed to protect digital privacy to high-performing jeans that combat air pollution and to hi-vis cyclewear as a response to urban harassment.

The interviews in Wearable Utopias are organized into six key themes addressing a selection of pressing civic issues: expanding (wearables that push physical, social, and political boundaries), moving (wearables that enable participation in a wider range of sport and activities), concealing (wearables that defend privacy or keep secrets), connecting (wearables that link individuals to large-scale issues); leaking (wearables that challenge the idea that urinating and menstruating are problematic or taboo), and working (wearables that address inequalities in the workplace).

Wearable Utopias offers insight and inspiration for students, researchers, designers, and anyone making things to wear who is frustrated with daily inequities and normative limitations and wants to do things differently.

Item Type:	Edited Book
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Sociology
Date:	24 September 2024
Item ID:	37379
Date Deposited:	25 Jul 2024 08:30
Last Modified:	25 Jul 2024 08:30
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/37379

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