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- Convenor:
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Fabian Broeker
(LSE)
Send message to Convenor
- Chairs:
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Branwen Spector
(University College London)
Fabian Broeker (LSE)
Short Abstract:
The panel aims to situate dating technologies within anthropological investigations that go beyond ethnographic portraits of dating, to ask broader questions on ethics, methodology, and culture, moving past questions of intimacy, to interrogate their wider societal impact on communities.
Long Abstract:
Dating apps have been absorbed into dating rituals and practices of intimacy across the globe, but anthropological scholarship is only beginning to grapple with how their impact has moved beyond this scope. Indeed, digital technologies are bound up in everyday life, with platforms, devices and other digital services forming socio-technical assemblages which can shape or reconfigure the dynamics of human relationships and identity. There are now a large variety of dating apps catering to particular desires, cultural contexts, and user groups, forming a polymedia environment of possibilities for anthropological scholarship and engagement.
We invite to our panel, anthropologists examining the impact of dating apps beyond dating, anchoring these applications within specific cultural contexts, who interrogate their wider societal impact on communities, addressed via anthropological theoretical frameworks and methodologies. Within this framework, while offering a diversity of viewpoints, the panel will engage particularly with dating apps across the Global South, seeking to provide counterpoints to the plethora of anthropological literature focusing on dating apps via an Anglo-American lens. While, of course, any discussion of dating apps will remain somewhat anchored in practices of intimacy, this panel seeks to broaden perspectives on this topic, by facilitating a more in-depth examination of the particular cultural contexts these apps exist within, taking on the specific experiential viewpoints of communities in widely varying circumstances. We invite discussions on how we can think about these apps beyond questions of intimacy, and how we can utilise them as tools to move beyond their sociotechnical borders.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2024, -Bruno Barbosa (Federal University of São Carlos)
Paper short abstract:
Relationships that combine financial support and emotional exchange have been analyzed in broad research on the sex market. This paper presents Brazilian dating apps/websites that use terms such as “sugar relationships” to qualify relationships between women and wealthy men.
Paper long abstract:
Relationships that combine financial support and emotional exchange have been analyzed in broad research on the sex market. With the popularization of digital media in Brazil over the past decade, this relationship model has proliferated through online dating services with terms such as “sugar relationships”, “sugar daddies”, and “sugar babies” to characterize a type of dating in which wealthy men provide economic support to women in exchange for romance and sex. Based on a digital ethnography that interviewed ten “sugar babies” and collected advertisements, live broadcasts, and content from digital influencers of two “sugar” websites, this paper discusses the extent to which these companies invoke feminist discourses and the culture of self-entrepreneurship to attract a female audience using three discursive strategies: 1) Disassociation from sex work by emphasizing the idea of emotional authenticity in the relationship; 2) Female empowerment by presenting these relationships as egalitarian and free of gender issues; 3) Expectation of economic independence and professional development by investing financial support in areas related to work and study. Furthermore, this article explores the contradictions between the representations marketed by the websites and the experiences of the female users interviewed, which are permeated by inequalities of class, gender, race, age, body, and geographic region.
Xuechen Zhao
Paper short abstract:
The study examines how Chinese heterosexual men present their masculinity on dating profiles in the United Kingdom (UK) to determine the extent to which their perceived desirable traits affirm or challenge Chinese hegemonic masculinity on dating apps.
Paper long abstract:
Dating apps enable individuals to exhibit themselves through photographs, showcasing the qualities individuals deem important in their own cultural environment. Men display reflexivity while selecting the traits they showcase on their dating profiles, which is known as "reflexive qualities" (Haywood, 2018). This term refers to how men construct an image of ideal masculinity by reflecting on and curating their dating profiles. The perceived ideal masculinity is associated with hegemonic masculinity (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005), which represents a gender-based hierarchy that promotes specific forms of masculinity as more socially desirable than others. In the British dating context, Chinese hegemonic masculinity, which emphasises cultural achievement and martial arts (Louie, 2003), is marginalised due to the dominance of Western hegemonic masculinity values. This impacts how Chinese heterosexual males embody their idealised masculinity on dating app profiles.
By conducting interviews with 25 Chinese heterosexual men aged 18 to 30 and examining their profile images using content analysis, I found that, firstly, they often have profile photos that showcase outdoor activities and selfies with friends on local dating apps, reflecting the fact that they post profile photos in a localised context. Secondly, they upload precisely edited photographs with filters to enhance the attractiveness of their dating profiles. My research argues that Chinese heterosexual men create a form of hybrid masculinity by displaying perceived desirable characteristics in Chinese and Western hegemonic masculinity across various dating apps.
Axel Ravier (University of Rouen, France - University of Lausanne, Switzerland) Andrea Zanotti (University Sorbonne Nouvelle (France) University of Lausanne (Switzerland))
Paper short abstract:
Based on two studies exploring the experiences of MSM in France through digital methods, including apps like Grindr, this contribution addresses challenges faced by researchers navigating a field influenced by a "sexual script." It examines tensions between research and sexual scripts.
Paper long abstract:
This contribution, based on two studies exploring the life experiences of men who have sex and emotional relationships with men (MSM) in France, examines the challenges faced by researchers using digital methods. The studies focus specifically on MSM in housing estates and metropolitan/rural environments, and use location-based dating apps such as Grindr and Scruff. These applications enable immediate encounters due to spatial proximity, and offer details of both sexual practices and morphological attributes. The digital connections established often evolve into diverse types of relationships.
The research addresses a multi-sited research field shaped by a ‘sexual script’ specific to online dating technologies. The presentation explores how researchers, using both ‘researcher’ and ‘personal’ profiles, navigate the digital space, answering questions about their social positions and legitimacy. The tension between the research script and the 'sexual script' reintroduces researchers to hierarchies of eroticism and desirability, impacting power relationships between the interviewer and the respondent, both online and offline.
Furthermore, the spatial and social context (housing estates, urban, and rural areas) shapes researchers’ experiences, challenging their social assignments in terms of sexual orientation and race. The diversity of subjects highlights the ethnographer’s ambiguities in the field, prompting a reflection on proximity-distance relationships that shape intersections between researchers and respondents. Comparing these studies contributes to the discourse on digital ethnographic approaches in urban and sexuality studies, emphasizing the researchers’ nuanced navigation within these distinct studies.
Selima Kabir (BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University) Ishrat Jahan (BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University)
Paper short abstract:
Instagram Stories, lasting only 24-hours, are a ‘safe’ means of documenting experiences of dating apps in Dhaka: bad dates, ghosting and rejection. To contend with ethical ramifications, we conducted a review of existing ethical frameworks on online participant observation to be adapted for our use.
Paper long abstract:
In the Bangladeshi context, discourse around dating exists in a delicate balance between the desire for love and romance, against ideas of respectability shaped through religio-cultural norms and practices. Instagram and other social media can be a ‘safe’ space to post their experiences and frustrations of using online dating applications in Dhaka, Bangladesh such as: underwhelming dates and experiences of ‘ghosting’ and rejection. Particularly, Instagram Stories (lasting only 24 hours) are an extremely private medium due to its ephemeral nature, but ethical data collection was difficult to justify as a result.
Our methodology aimed to shift away from the so-called ‘big data revolution’ and identify meaningful mechanisms to collect ‘small data’ (boyd and Crawford, 2012), that captured the rich, contextual meaning making process in the sharing-resharing of memes, reels, and personal musings, while circumventing the culture of silence and public secrecy around dating.
We review and analyze ethical frameworks created by the Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0 (Association of Internet Researchers, 2019); Latzko-Toth, Bonneau, and Millette (2016) on thickening data; and Uberti (2021) on the ethics of internet-mediated research and ‘lurking’. We combine these with literature on reflexivity and positionality of the researcher as an insider, particularly considering that the 15 participants approached for interviews were determined through convenience sampling, and therefore known to the researchers from before, due to the nature of secrecy around dating and relationships in our cultural context. Through this, we were able to design our own adapted ethical framework to collect rich, ethnographic digital data.
Erinne Paisley (University of Amsterdam)
Paper short abstract:
This research investigates the Dutch ‘Breeze’ location-based dating application, with its integrated direct-payment infrastructure, as part of broader socio-technical shifts in the intimate mediation of payment(s) within the context of the Netherlands.
Paper long abstract:
In the socio-cultural setting of the Netherlands, digital peer-to-peer (P2P) payments have rapidly increased in recent years (Zanen 2021) with a growing body of research relating P2P applications to the social mediation of payment(s) (e.g. van den Idsert 2022). Amidst this context, the Dutch ‘Breeze’ start-up emerged. This Netherlands-based location-based dating (LBD) application distinguishes itself from a saturated LBD market by basing its funding model on a series of integrate direct payment affordances designed to create accountability for attendance of first dates (Breeze, n.d.). This includes a ‘first drink’ payment and service fee, once a date has been mutually agreed upon, as well as a penalty fee if a user does not attend a date. This research asks: What can an investigation of Breeze use tell about shifting norms relating to the social mediation of payments(s) in intimate relationship building within the context of the Netherlands?
Existing studies on LBD applications have tended to overlook the sociocultural context to focus on digitized intimacy (e.g. Hobbs et al. 2017) as well as the gamification dating through platforms’ interfaces (e.g. Walter-Linne 2020). This research investigates Breeze as part of broader questions surrounding evolving socio-technical entanglements. Theoretically, this research builds from the sociology and anthropology of money (Zelizer 1994) and methodologically combines a platform-based affordance analysis with quantitative survey-based inquiries. Initial findings argue Breeze as part of a larger ‘moral’ shift in the social mediation of payment(s) throughout the Netherlands, influenced by increasing socio-technical entanglement into everyday social practices and patterns.