The author examines the popularity of microchips implanted in people in Sweden. She draws on a broad range of theoretical perspectives to investigate Swedish microchipping as a narrative in which society and technology are deeply connected, including what is being said about the phenomenon and how it is mediated, as well as the phenomenon as a practice. She discusses the origins and formation of the Swedish chip movement, what chips are, and what they can do, as well as the chip movement as part of the Swedish biohacking scene, how chips became a business, and how the Swedish media covers chipping, in comparison to the international media; explanations for why human microchipping appeared on the Swedish scene; arguments for chipping oneself, drawn from interviews with 15 Swedish citizens; and the themes of surveillance and future ideas for human chip implants, science fiction as reality and biological bodies, and transhumanism.

Moa Petersén is Associate Professor in Digital Cultures at the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences at Lund University. She has written several articles and book chapters on the relationships between humans, technology and nature.

Chapter 1. When the Chips came to Sweden