In this essay, I present how I engage with my ethical position in designing with my own
bodily fluids, and more specifically, with milk from my breastfeeding relationship.
This is through performative texts that revisit moments of discomfort to unpack how I navigate
potential harm, and how I speculate about ethical possibilities for interaction design.
This research is of importance for HCI at the intersection of designing with biomaterials,
more-than-human entanglements, and the ethics of first-person research.
In early 2020, I began designing with and for bodily fluids, such as knitting bras for
lopsided breasts and transforming milk into fiddling necklaces.
My process has included: setting up breast pump equipment at the office
to express milk for my child; measuring an expired bottle of milk at home
to mix with preserving powder bought online casting our solidfied milk in resin
making casein plastic with cow's milk by following online recipes from kids STEM experiments;
and exhibiting material experiments at work to colleagues
I understand research ethics to be relational within a feminist ethics of care.
This contrasts from procedural ethics that are often grounded within universal principles
and moral authority.
In researching my breastfeeding experiences, I have frequent discussions with my partner
(who is also my child s father and co-caretaker), and receive consent from myself and him.
This includes speculating on how our child (and him and I) might feel in the future.
In researching human milk in Sweden, the Swedish Ethical Review Authority requires formal approval
of research performed on biological material from a living human if it can be traced back
to that person.
It does not acknowledge first-person methods or felt experiences of it as a design material.
Also, approval must be obtained before research begins, which is difficult relative to uncertainties
of breastfeeding.
In response to shortcomings of procedural ethics, I create and rehearse performative
texts in which the words themselves also perform through visual and spatial compositions.
As performances, they are less about accuracy and more about the associated emotions that
come from recreating situations.
As performative, the words are a discursive material in understanding relations among
bodies of text and bodies of fluids.
This process was inspired by a PhD course on autoethnographic methods by Annette Markham
and Lisbeth Fr lunde.
In the paper, I present three performative texts
A first performative text revisits a time when I used a chemical agent purchased online
to solidify our milk at home without him and her.
The results turn it into a very fine powder called Mommy love dust .
It resulted in emotional distress as I noticed in panic that it s smoking and this smells!
My panic was situated in not knowing how maybe it will linger or be materially shared with
her in subsequent milk production despite my attempts to don't breathe, hold, breathe
over there.
I chose to revisit this moment because it was a time when I felt my design work could
be of material harm to my child, my partner, and myself.
In verbally performing the text the first page felt as dense as it looks
The composition radically shifts on the second page.
My bracketed thoughts are spatially distributed and written in various directions.
This accentuates unclear beginnings and endings of when and where material harm might take
place.
From this text, I call for support in designing within everyday “unsafe spaces”
that acknowledges how bodily fluids travel and perform as biological and social materials
This means that separating research spaces as safe risks neglecting
the people, contexts, and materials that our milk and our bodies
interact with as we move between places.
I argue for more consideration given to how the experiences of spaces inform how meaning
is made in designing with bodily fluids.
A second performative text revisits two different encounters during the same academic event.
On the left is the first and to the right is the second.
The top page is a description of each scene, and the bottom page is conversations.
In the first encounter, a group of researchers were discussing something else, yet the focus
transitions to the beginning of the end for me upon being asked an unrelated question
about breastfeeding that left me feeling angry.
In the other encounter, I was meeting with a researcher to knowingly discuss a paper
I was writing on breastfeeding.
I received the feedback: I don t think you are saying what you really want to say.
I realized the delineation between what I wanted to keep closed and what I wanted to
open was surprisingly unfinished and messy to myself.
I chose to revisit these encounters because I didn t feel good about sharing my breastfeeding
experiences as research at this time.
In verbally performing the text, I read the descriptions and then the dialogues.
This accentuated the separation of scene and conversation, and a vulnerability in not knowing
when or where I might be asked a challenging question.
From this text, I call for situated escapes that supports pausing, abandoning, and altering
research plans.
While academic expectations might provide structure to PhD students such as myself,
they might also be difficult to align with vulnerabilities in sharing
This necessitates recognizing temporalities of bodily fluids and their felt impact on
research decisions within windows of opportunity to share and not share.
A third performative text revisits when I received reviews for a publication on breastfeeding
and was asked to add a content warning to my paper and video presentation.
This single page of text is series of lines that alternate between what I perceive as
mostly positive and what troubles me.
The positive aspects include recognizing it is from care and love, and indicate that my
voice should be heard.
The negative aspects include the notion of a content warning , my struggle in understanding
what it clarifies, and my worry in how my child will interpret it in the future.
I chose to revisit this moment because I felt (and feel) conflicted in adding the content
warning at the beginning, and unsure whether I should continue to include it.
In performing the text, I wasn t sure how to proceed: Read altogether, the top first,
or the bottom first The fold seemed to represent divisions between
dealing with the present and speculating about the future
But there is also a possible peaking and reading in between the lines that hint at my frustration
in censoring something by saying too much.
From this text, I call for how HCI might welcome an ethics of censored inclusion that does
not suppress possible relations And instead welcomes creative practices in
which censorship is about lively inclusion.
To be clear, I am not advocating against content warnings altogether, but rather questioning
when, where, and how they are put into practice.