To browse Academia. This book 1. Investigates how gay-identified immigrants and refugees experience feelings of inclusion or exclusion within a sexually-charged online subculture 2.
Explores the response of ethnic minorities to demonstrations of racism and xenophobia within an intolerant European climate 3. Challenges political rhetoric that labels immigrants from Muslim-majority countries as sexually conservative and homophobic or as victims in need of saving This book examines the role of hook-up apps in the lives of gay, bi, trans, and queer immigrants and refugees, and how the online culture of these platforms promotes belonging or exclusion.
Within the context of the so-called European refugee crisis, this research focuses on the experiences of immigrants from especially Muslim-majority countries to the greater Copenhagen area, a region known for both its progressive ideologies and its anti-immigrant practices.
Grindr and similar platforms connect newcomers with not only dates and sex, but also friends, roommates and other logistical contacts. But these socio-sexual platforms also become spaces of racialization and othering. Weaving together analyses of real Grindr profile texts, immigrant narratives, political rhetoric, and popular media, Immigrants on Grindr provides an in-depth look at the complex interplay between online and offline cultures, and between technology and society.
This research note is based on ethnographic work in the greater Copenhagen area on the socio-sexual networking app Grindr and on interviews with twelve recent immigrants who use this platform. As an online space primarily for gay men, Grindr is a unique subculture in which to conduct research about intersections of sexuality with other socio-cultural categories such as race and migration background, but also gender and ability. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, In this open-access essay, I assess the idea that Grindr and related apps render urban gay spaces obsolete, and offer three counter-arguments based on my research with immigrants and tourists who use Grindr.
