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Queer geographies of spatial media

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Graeme Mearns

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This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2020.

For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.

Abstract

Digital media scholarship is burgeoning. However, there remains a paucity of queer geographies accounting for hybridity and multi-directionality of co-existing, variegated and embodied spaces produced through spatial media nor the technologies that enable these media (smartphones, tablet computers, 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, 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.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Mearns GW

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Geography Compass

Year: 2020

Volume: 14

Issue: 3

Print publication date: 01/03/2020

Online publication date: 23/12/2019

Acceptance date: 15/10/2019

Date deposited: 12/11/2019

ISSN (electronic): 1749-8198

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Ltd

URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12481

DOI: 10.1111/gec3.12481

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