Dr Josie Hamper

Profile

Josie’s research interests are broadly located within social and cultural studies of human reproduction, with a particular interest in practices of knowledge making and the forging of new identities and relations to others. Josie is currently a postdoctoral researcher on the ‘Remaking the Human Body’ project in the School of Business and Management. Prior to joining this project, Josie completed an MA in geography at the University of St Andrews, an MSc with a specialism in geographies of health at Queen Mary, and an ESRC funded PhD in the School of Geography also at Queen Mary.

Using empirically grounded qualitative methods, Josie’s PhD examined women’s use of fertility monitoring and pregnancy smartphone apps to understand the role that this digital technology plays in how reproduction is negotiated, imagined and practiced in the context of everyday life. As a geographer, Josie is particularly concerned with the significance of place, movement, connectedness and concepts of scale to people’s lived experience.

Research

Research Interests:

Research interests: Reproduction; reproductive, sexual and maternal health; digital, visual and reproductive technologies; social studies of medicine; the ‘quantified self’; qualitative research methods; feminist geographies of relatedness and the body.

Josie’s research is currently focused on the embodied experiences, knowledge and practices that emerge from intersections between technology and reproduction. Her work on the ‘Remaking the Human Body’ project focuses specifically on IVF patients’ encounters with new biomedical imaging technologies in the context of fertility treatment. Through in-depth qualitative interviews with patients and their close others (such as partners or family members), Josie will explore how these individuals make sense of imagery that traces the early development of embryos, and how such imagery is involved in reconfiguring understandings of reproductive processes and the human body. Josie’s current and previous research specialises in employing innovative qualitative methodologies to explore questions around health, medicine, the body and technology.

 

Publications

• Hamper, Josie and Manuela Perrotta (2022) Watching embryos: Exploring the geographies of assisted reproduction through encounters with embryo imaging technologies. Social & Cultural Geography. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2022.2073467
• Hamper, Josie (2021) A fertility app for two? Women’s perspectives on sharing conceptive fertility work with male partners. Culture, Health & Sexuality. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2021.2002414
• Perrotta, Manuela and Hamper, Josie (2021) The crafting of hope: Contextualising add-ons in the treatment trajectories of IVF patients. Social Science & Medicine, 287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114317   
• Hamper, Josie and Catherine Nash (2021) Bonding work: Spacing relations through pregnancy apps. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 46 (3). https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12446  
• Hamper, Josie (2020) 'Catching ovulation': Exploring women’s use of fertility tracking apps as a reproductive technology. Body & Society, 26 (3). https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X19898259 
• Hamper, Josie (2014) Internett, førstegongsmødre og amming [The Internet, first-time mothers and breastfeeding], Tidsskrift for Helsesøstre [Norwegian Periodical for Health Visitors], Nr. 3-2014, pp. 50-53.

 

Recent conference papers

• Hamper, Josie (2021) Lived geographies of fertility treatment: New technologies, parenting hopes and potential futures. Royal Geographical Society with IBG Annual Conference, London, UK (online).
• Hamper, Josie and Manuela Perrotta (2021) Three perspectives on fertility treatment ‘add-ons’ in the UK. Nordic STS Conference, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark (online).
• Hamper, Josie (2020) The everyday temporalities of fertility and pregnancy apps. Temporalities of the living: Health, disease and technology beyond the lifecourse, University of Lausanne, Switzerland (online).
• Hamper, Josie (2019) Anticipating reproductive futures: Fertility apps in practice. Royal Geographical Society with IBG Annual Conference, London, UK.
• Hamper, Josie (2017) Getting the timing right: Women’s use of fertility tracking smartphone apps. Nordic Network for Gender, Body and Health Conference ‘Monitoring the Self’, Helsinki, Finland.
• Hamper, Josie (2017) Digital spaces of reproduction. American Association of Geographers Annual Conference, Boston, USA.
• Hamper, Josie (2016) Relating to the 'normal': Women’s use of fertility and pregnancy smartphone apps. Royal Geographical Society with IBG Annual Conference, London, UK.
• Hamper, Josie (2016) Women’s use of fertility and pregnancy smartphone apps: Some emerging themes. Emerging New Researchers in the Geographies of Health and Impairment (ENRGHI) Annual Conference, Glasgow, UK.