Chapter 7: Wearable biosensors: an agenda for digital embodied methods

The body continues to be a vital feature of geographical scholarship, yet the discipline continues to use traditional research methods that produce ‘very wordy worlds’ despite the technological advances in recent years. In this chapter we advocate for the critical application of wearable biosensors to expand digital geography’s knowledge and consideration of the body. Wearable biosensors are small devices that measure the body’s automatic reactions and give insight into people’s emotional reactions to phenomena. Considering the application of these devices in three different research projects across different disciplinary backgrounds (i.e., geography, GIScience and psychology), we discuss the possibilities and limitations of digital embodied methods for digital geographers interested in embodiment. Through this discussion we argue that future research using these wearable biosensors need to be placed in a mixed-methodology to actively consider the subjective and contextualised nature of emotional response.