Whose stress counts? Wearable biosensing in urban spaces through a feminist lens

The experience of urban stress can profoundly influences health and well-being of city residents. Importantly, stress is experienced differently depending on social and individual factors, making certain groups more vulnerable than others. This paper presents a literature review of wearable biosensing research on stress in urban settings. It analyzes how physiological measures, including heart-rate metrics (HRV/ECG), electrodermal activity (EDA) and electroencephalography (EEG), have been used to link built environments to individual stress experiences. Drawing on feminist theory, the review asks whether biosensing research acknowledges that stress is not experienced uniformly but reflects social inequalities. The findings show limited attention of published studies to different perceptions of stress. Most studies analyze urban stress in an aggregated form with only about one-third of the identified publications focusing on subgroup differences related to age, mental health, or gender. The paper argues that future research should use biosensing not only to map stress but to create insights into how underrepresented groups physiologically respond to urban space by systematically focusing on social and cultural contexts and embodied differences next to environmental aspects.