Is My Pancreas Showing? Insulin Pumps As An Extension To The Body. Wearable Tech And Identity And The Creation Of A Community

 Insulin pumps and CGMs are medically necessary devices used by Type 1 Diabetics to help manage their illness. In order to function, these devices are continuously attached directly to the body. This major research project (MRP) examines how these devices influence and become integrated with the dress of nine participants with Type 1 Diabetes. Through data collected from ethnographic interviews along with an autoethnographic perspective, this research argues that Type 1 Diabetics perceive insulin pumps and CGMs as extensions of their body that result in the need to accommodate their dress as well as being items that they can adorn or decorate. This forms a phenomenological basis for Diabetic fashion. This MRP also explores how these devices make visible a previously invisible chronic illness and how this visibility signifies a shared phenomenological experience as the basis of a Diabetic community.