Open AccessDesigning Queer Connection: An Ethnography of Dating App Production in Urban India
Author(s) -
DAS VISHNUPRIYA
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
ethnographic praxis in industry conference proceedings
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1559-8918
pISSN - 1559-890X
DOI - 10.1111/1559-8918.2019.01295
Subject(s) - fieldnotes , queer , scholarship , ethnography , sociology , space (punctuation) , gender studies , media studies , political science , anthropology , computer science , law , operating system
India is currently at the precipice of immense social and technological change. The proliferation of smartphones and growth of the nation's app economy raise questions about how digital platforms might influence the contours of love, sex, and desire in the region in the coming decades. This paper engages with these concerns by examining what it means to design intimate connection for LGBTQ communities in non‐western spaces. Drawing on fieldnotes, app walkthroughs, interviews with mid‐level and upper‐level professionals in the dating app space as well as audiovisual material from advertising archives, this paper provides readers with a critical analysis of the “problem” of designing queer connection in a digital world of abundant data and transient identities. Carefully examining the production practices of Delta, India's first locally produced LGBTQ dating app I argue that there is a pressing need for scholarship on industry dynamics beyond western technology centers.