GPS watches and digital self-tracking devices (DSTDs) have been characterized as ‘self-tracking’ devices, assuming a dyadic relationship between individuals and technologies. Amongst Ethiopian professional runners, such devices have become increasingly sought after, and yet they are embedded in deeper relationships of collaborative work, submission, and authority. They circulate between people, tracking relationships as much as they track selves. I place their use in the context of the discourses and practices of two of the main corporations working with runners in Ethiopia to suggest that the logic of exponential acceleration upon which these corporations rely is contested by Ethiopian runners, who attempt to achieve a synthesis between external scientific knowledge and pre-existing ideas about energy, risk, and collective work. Whilst DSTDs may offer a tantalizing opportunity to give in to individualistic urges, in fact they crystallize existing tensions in Amhara society between centrifugal desire and duties of care and reciprocity.

中文翻译：

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跟踪自己还是跟踪关系？埃塞俄比亚跑步者的时间测量方法

GPS 手表和数字自跟踪设备 (DSTD) 已被定性为“自跟踪”设备，假设个人和技术之间存在二元关系。在埃塞俄比亚的职业跑步者中，这种设备越来越受到追捧，但它们嵌入在更深层次的协作工作、服从和权威关系中。他们在人与人之间流动，跟踪关系和跟踪自己一样多。我将它们的使用放在与埃塞俄比亚跑步者合作的两家主要公司的话语和实践的背景下，以表明这些公司所依赖的指数加速逻辑受到埃塞俄比亚跑步者的质疑，他们试图实现外部之间的综合关于能源、风险和集体工作的科学知识和预先存在的想法。