Paper short abstract:

How can cruising be understood as a reflexive methodology that both maps networks but also participates in the maintenance of that which the researcher sets out to study? Rather than evaluate whether cruising can overcome difference, I propose cruising as a practice in phatic labor.

Paper long abstract:

Cruising can be understood as both a practice in intimacy, premised on the spatiotemporal disjunction of the fleeting encounter, and a mode of apprehending the world which lends itself to seeing or anticipating forms of intimacy and connection in unexpected spacetimes. Rather than focus on evaluating the practice of cruising as one that reproduces social divisions or is able to overcome them as much queer theory has, this contribution will consider how cruising in the field can be approached as a form of phatic labor that both seeks to map networks of actors, but also participates in the very process of establishing the networks themselves. Can cruising as a methodological place diverse actors within the same frame of analysis and what are the terms of inclusion based on this form of participation?

This contribution will reflect on fieldwork conducted in Bengaluru, India, during which I sought to map networks of actors who participated in a non-governmental organization (NGO) job upskilling and placement programs for working-class LGBTQ youth. These youths were largely drawn from an existing pool of precarious sexual health NGO workers whose prior job experience included distributing prophylactics in cruising sites. Shadowing their NGO work, I consider the practices of cruising these NGO workers engaged in and how these same practices could be applied to my own research, which moved across the NGO sector to include the large corporate organizations where these same actors sought employment.