Digital Flesh: Posthuman Embodiment, Surveillance, and the Ethics of Datafied Selves

Abstract

The rapid expansion of digital technologies has transformed the human body into a site of continuous data production, circulation, and control. This study examines the emergence of “digital flesh” within the framework of posthuman embodiment, where wearable devices, biometric systems, artificial intelligence, and networked platforms increasingly mediate biological existence. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway, Shoshana Zuboff, and N. Katherine Hayles, the paper conceptualises the body as an informational construct subject to pervasive surveillance and algorithmic governance. It argues that datafication reconfigures subjectivity by rendering individuals into measurable and predictive entities, thereby dissolving the boundaries between the physical and the digital. The study further foregrounds the bioethical implications of this transformation, particularly regarding autonomy, consent, privacy, and identity. It contends that contemporary regimes of data extraction operate through forms of implicit or coerced consent, undermining individual agency while intensifying structural inequalities. By engaging with select literary and cultural texts, the study demonstrates how these concerns are critically imagined and contested. Ultimately, it calls for a rearticulation of bioethical frameworks to address the complexities of technologically mediated embodiment.