Engaging readers with the ways that visualization technologies are crafted, used and imbued with meaning, Technologized Images, Technologized Bodies asks how ethnography can explore the issues that arise at the interface between the body and technology. The central themes of the book are how the body is ‘mediated, imaged and imagined’ in an increasingly digital era, and how new forms of data production and visualization give rise to new forms of embodiment, sociality and power. In their introduction, the editors situate these topics amongst other anthropological investigations of how changes in subjectivity are linked to developments in the biological and informational sciences, referring to seminal works by Paul Rabinow, Nikolas Rose, Donna Harraway and Michel Foucault.

The book begins with an introduction by the editors, who give an overview of works included in the book, and also a discussion of how the works relate to other social science studies of visualization technologies and the body. The book then continues, in the next eight chapters, with specific ethnographic accounts of visualization technologies by various authors. These chapters discuss the configuration of visualization technologies relative to technologized bodies in a variety of biomedical contexts, including a science museum exhibit of the brain (by Anne Lorimer), a gastroenterology ward in India (by Stefan Ecks) and a laboratory employing techniques of cryobiology and cell culture (by Hannah Landecker). The most notable works, in terms of the ethnographic complexity, include Joseph Dumit’s discussion of the grammar of the ‘at risk’ body that emerges in direct-to-consumer advertisements for depression pharmacotherapy, Simon Cohn’s account of how MRI brain scans of mental disorders are produced and imbued with different meanings for doctors and patients, and Griet Scheldeman’s exploration of the way insulin pumps impact and configure the lived world of disease for children with diabetes. These three chapters succeed in providing a particularly detailed and contextual analysis of the meanings about the body and health that emerge from pharmaceutical advertisements, MRI brain scans and insulin pumps.

Overall, Technologized Images, Technologized Bodies is a compelling collection of works that engage with the impact of modern technologies and sciences on human life. It is an important contribution to the fields of visual anthropology, anthropology of the body and science and technology studies, engaging with the complex relationships between various technologies and various forms of subjectivity, while also grappling with important historical, political and cultural considerations. While the breadth of subjects addressed within the book can make it difficult to formulate a definitive notion of the relationship between technology and the body, the book does succeed in provoking the reader to examine this relationship from various perspectives. Therefore, while this book should not be read as an authoritative text on the subject, it is highly recommended for any social scientist seeking to gain a multi-faceted understanding of the complex issues that arise from the modern day implementation of visualization technologies in various arenas of human life.