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Queer geographies of spatial media
Author(s) -
Mearns Graeme W.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geography compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.587
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 1749-8198
DOI - 10.1111/gec3.12481
Subject(s) - queer , scholarship , citizenship , human sexuality , sociology , hybridity , embodied cognition , space (punctuation) , gender studies , cyberspace , politics , media studies , the internet , aesthetics , political science , epistemology , anthropology , law , world wide web , computer science , art , philosophy , operating system
Digital media scholarship is burgeoning. However, there remains a paucity of queer geographies accounting for hybridity and multi‐directionality of coexisting, variegated and embodied spaces produced through spatial media nor the technologies that enable these media (smartphones, tablet computers, and self‐tracking devices). Bringing together literatures on sexuality and the first and second iterations of the internet, this article extends debate about the uneven and paradoxical queer geographies of location‐aware applications (Tinder and Grindr) and other spatial media now often taken as “composite” of queer cultures globally. The article encourages those with interest in the interrelationships between sexualities and space to emphasise further the historical, cultural, and political specificities of the places in which these diverse media are designed, developed, and consumed. The purpose of doing so, I contend, is to deepen knowledge of heightened commercialisation whilst unravelling complex questions of data ownership, privacy and cultural norms that could exacerbate disparities in sexual citizenship.