Desire Lines Towards A Queer Digital Media Phenomenology

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Desire LinesTowards a Queer DigitalMedia PhenomenologyMatilda TudorSÖDERTÖRN DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS

Desire LinesTowards a Queer Digital Media PhenomenologyMatilda Tudor

Subject: Media and Communication StudiesResearch Area: Critical and Cultural TheorySchool: Culture and EducationSödertörns högskola(Södertörn University)The LibrarySE-141 89 Huddingewww.sh.se/publications Matilda TudorCover Illustraton: Kajsa BornedalGraphic Form: Per Lindblom & Jonathan RobsonPrinted by Elanders, Stockholm 2018Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations 157ISSN 1652–7399ISBN 978–91–88663–48–1 (print)ISBN 978–91–88663–49–8 (digital)

For SantinoWherever your desire may lead you

A desire path (often referred to as desire line in transportation planning[ ]) is a path created as a consequence of erosion caused by human oranimal foot-fall or traffic. [ ] Desire paths emerge as shortcuts whereconstructed ways take a circuitous route, have gaps, or are non-existent.Wikipedia, 2018

AbstractThis dissertation explores ways in which “queer digital media use” reorganizes and co-produces senses of space, time, and queer being in contemporary Russia. Since Russia implemented laws against “gay propaganda”during the early 2010s, queer citizens have become symbolic targets forbattles fought about Russia’s place within modernity, resulting in heightened queer exposure and persecution. Considering the particular implicationsof visibility/invisibility for queer living, as well as the importance of compartmentalizing different often conflicting spheres, the study aims to provide a grounded and contextualized account of queer life lived with andthrough digital media in a context currently characterized by “anti-gay”sentiments.Queer digital media use in this study includes all engagement with digitalmedia supporting a queer orientation in the world, and covers e.g. mainstream social media networks, queer dating forums, geolocative applications, digital bulletin boards and IRC-channels. Empirically, the studydraws on in-depth interviews with nineteen queer male informants in SaintPetersburg, and fieldwork performed there during 2013–2015. The selectionof informants is limited to same-sex desiring cis-men, and the material hasbeen collected and treated in accordance with a “non-digital-centric” digitalethnography.Taking a distinct phenomenological perspective, the study asks howdigital media is implicated within the informants’ general queer orientationtowards the world. How does digital media affect perceptions of the hereand now, the proximate and the distant, and spaces of belonging? In whatway is it entwined with the directions they are taking and how they perceiveof the future? And how do the different mobilities of flesh and code relate toone another?While aiming to answer such questions, the study outlines a “queer digital media phenomenology”, primarily combining Sara Ahmed’s queer phenomenology and Shaun Moores’s media phenomenology. While Ahmedprovides the study with a deep understanding of queer habituation, Mooresadds a consideration of the multiply positioned digital media user, as afundamental pre-requisite for contemporary social experience.Rather than echoing the commonly accepted idea of speedup and instantaneousness within digital culture, the results show that digital media isoften used among the informants to help produce slowness and lingering,thereby serving to postpone further action. By producing spaces understoodas “safe” and/or private, digital media provides sites where the work of7

generating a queer orientation in the world can be done, and where thelarger geography of everyday living may be negotiated. As such, the informants are often highly invested in efforts to keep various sites online andoffline separate, which however becomes increasingly challenging due to“the culture of connectivity” and “the real name Internet”. The study thusexplores how the informants travel across these multiple sites, particularlyarticulating the dynamics between online and offline spaces, and the discontinuities of queer digital media use.Challenging the idea of constant connectivity and an online/offline collapse, the dissertation follows recent studies in suggesting that digital mediause exposes unorthodox ways of imagining relationality, and that we needto critically consider inbuilt normative assumptions about the embodiedsubjects anticipated to live “seamless medialives”.Keywords: digital media, queer, Russia, phenomenology, space, time, mobility, visibility, embodiment, discontinuity, Hornet, Growlr, VKontakte,Mamba.8

SammanfattningI denna avhandling utforskas hur “queert digitalt mediebruk” samproduceraroch omorganiserar uppfattningar om tid, rum och queert varande i samtidaRyssland. Sedan Ryssland implementerade lagar mot ”gay propaganda”under tidigt 2010-tal har queera medborgare blivit symboliska måltavlor islaget om Rysslands plats i moderniteten, vilket resulterat i ökad synlighetoch förföljelse. Med hänsyn till de särskilda implikationer som synlighet/osynlighet har för queera individer, samt vikten av att kunna hålla isär olikasfärer som ofta står i konflikt med varandra, ämnar den här studien att bidramed en kontextualiserad beskrivning av hur queert liv levs med och genomdigitala medier, i en miljö präglad av ökad homofobi.I studien räknas all användning av digitala medier som stödjer en queerorientering i världen som queert digitalt mediebruk, och inkluderar till exempel sociala medienätverk, queera dejtingforum, geolokala applikationer,digitala bulletin boards och IRC-kanaler. Empiriskt baseras studien pådjupintervjuer med nitton queera män boendes i Saint Petersburg, samtfältarbete som genomfördes där mellan 2013–2015. Urvalet av informanterär begränsat till cis-män som har sex med män, och materialet har samlats inoch behandlats i enlighet med en ”non-digital-centric” digital etnografi.Genom att anlägga ett distinkt fenomenologiskt perspektiv, avser studienatt besvara frågor om hur digitala medier hör samman med informanternasövergripande queera orientering i världen. Hur påverkar digitala medieruppfattningar av det som är här och nu, vad som är avlägset och nära, ochvart de tänker sig höra hemma? På vilka sätt är digitala medier sammanflätade med informanternas riktning framåt och hur de förnimmer sinframtid? Och hur kan vi förstå samspelet mellan kroppars och de digitalakodernas olika rörelseförmåga?För att besvara sådana frågor sätter studien samman en ”queer digitalmediefenomenologi”, huvudsakligen genom att kombinera Sara Ahmedsqueera fenomenologi med Shaun Moores mediefenomenologi. MedanAhmed utrustar studien med en djupare förståelse för queer habitueringunderstryker Moores att en fundamental utgångspunkt för att förstå samtida9

sociala erfarenheter är att den digitala medieanvändaren är mångfaldigtpositionerad i flera rum samtidigt.Medan digital kultur vanligen sammankopplas med ökat tempo och detomedelbara visar resultaten att studiens informanter ofta använder digitalamedier på sätt som saktar ner farten, i kvardröjande rörelser som syftar tillatt skjuta upp vidare handling. Digitala medier genererar rum som uppfattassom ”säkra” och/eller privata där det ”arbete” som krävs för att utveckla enqueer orientering i världen kan göras, och där vardagslivets övergripandegeografi kan förhandlas. Därmed är informanterna ofta mycket investerade iförsök att hålla olika platser online och offline separerade, vilket dockutmanas av samtida tendenser kopplade till det som kommit att kallas ”theculture of connetivity” och ”the real name Internet”. Studien utforskardärmed hur informanterna rör sig mellan dessa olika rum och betonarsärskilt dynamiken mellan platser online och offline för att fånga diskonetinuiteten i queert digitalt mediebruk.På så vis vill avhandlingen utmana idéer om konstant konnektivitet ochen online/offline-kollaps, och i likhet med samtida röster peka på att digitaltmediebruk visar på okonventionella sätt att föreställa sig det relationella, ochatt vi kritiskt behöver granska normativa utgångspunkter gällande dekroppsliga subjekt som antas leva ”sömlösa medieliv”.Nyckelord: digitalt mediebruk, queer, Ryssland, fenomenologi, tid och rum,mobilitet, synlighet, kroppslighet, diskontinuitet, Hornet, Growlr, Vkontakte, Mamba10

AcknowledgementsThis monograph is the result of five years PhD studies, over a six years’ timespan including parental leave. It’s been a bumpy ride to say the least. Formany of us beginning doctoral studies, it starts as an abrupt wakeup call,letting us understand that we are not as exceptional as we might have feltduring our previous studies, as we are now surrounded only by those whowere just as ambitious as ourselves – that’s why we’ve ended up here. Wecommonly go from knowing exactly where we are going and what we aredoing, to being lost in this new, exciting and terrifying world of wonderfullyclever and challenging minds. Particularly entering the research school ofCritical and Cultural Theory at Södertörn University meant a largely disorienting experience for me personally, coming from a trans-disciplinarybackground anchored in empirical research and sociological perspectives.In this new world a language was spoken which I couldn’t decipher, spunaround tropes such as the re-occurring “event”, commonly referred to inpassing but with distinct emphasis, as the event. What was this event thateverybody was talking about? Was it a media event? I did not dare to ask.Eventually, after a time of intense confusion, things started to settle, orperhaps rather to move, and answers arrived to which I had never learnedto pose any questions. The shape that this study has taken has shifted alongwith such arrivals, and looks nothing like I first thought it would. A pathwas gradually trodden through the thick vegetation of previous research,theoretical perspectives and field work, towards endpoints often completelyout of sight. Such journeys are not carried through without the support ofothers. First of all, it would never have been undertaken to start with if itwasn’t for the boldness and generosity of my main supervisor StinaBengtsson, who maintained that good research must be fueled by passion,and consequently let me go my own way, away from my initial proposal. Iam endlessly thankful for her engagement in my work, and our manyconversations over the years ranging from method to emotional support.Like so often between female academics, our relation has spanned into themessy realties of our everyday lives which are also the flesh and blood of ourintellectual work. Stina and my secondary supervisor Jenny Sundén are11

truly the founding mothers of this study, helping me back on my feet andleading the way when I lost all sense of direction. Thank you, Jenny, forentering into the process with such dedication when I needed it the most,and for your sensitive readings, so immensely respectful and inspiring. Yourmind blows me away!I would also like to express my gratitude towards the entire faculty of theDepartment of Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University,which has been my academic residence over these years. Many of you haveshown great interest in my work, and given important feedback on the textat different stages. This is particularly true of Anne Kaun and Johan Fornäs,who have taken their time for detailed and productive readings far beyondcollegial obligations. I have also fed from the indispensable expertise fromthe Russian context, through my excellent Södertörn colleges EmilEdenborg, Maria Brock, Ekaterina Kalinina and Luidmila Voronova, andnot least the initiated feed-back from Alexander Kondakov at The EuropeanUniversity of Saint Petersburg on the final draft- thank you all for teachingme so much. Further, the very constructive reading by André Jansson, whoacted as opponent at my ninety percent seminar, was essential for my wayforward towards finalizing the thesis. This would further have been a muchmore difficult accomplishment without all the kind support and assistanceby PhD administrator Ewa Rogström. Thank you also to Patricia TudorSandahl who have helped me with supplementary last-minute proof reading, and to Kajsa Bornedal who impressively were able to turn the essenceof the manuscript into a book cover.There are also many people who have helped me along the way with thepractical carrying through of the field work, among whom I would like toname the most important. First, I am thankful to Östersjöstiftelsen (TheFoundation for Baltic and East European Studies) for financing the project“Habitus and Higher Education” of which I have been part, as well as theSwedish Institute for additional financial support during field trips. Second,my friend and former classmate Elena Krivovyaz played a fundamental rolein introducing me to Saint Petersburg in 2013 and initiating the snowballsample, by putting me in contact with friends and acting as an excellenttranslator during some first interviews. Thank you so much for your helpand compassion, and for making my first fieldtrip so pleasurable. Alongwith Irina Seits, Elena also guided me with a warm hand and personalassistance through the rigorous regulations of the Russian visa process,without which I would have been lost. Once in place in Saint Petersburg, Ihave been chiefly assisted by some of the key informants worthy of men12

tioning, even if only so by pseudonyms. In particular “Nicolai” has beencrucial for recruiting informants, and I owe large part of the samplingprocess to his resourcefulness. He has also always been one step ahead withidentifying and helping me with any kind of practical needs, from providingtelephones and sim-cards, to metro maps and local know-how. Also“Sasha”, “Dima”, “Bogdan”, “Lyosha”, “Aslan” and “Fedir” have been tremendously generous with their time and engagement, constituting a socialsafety-net as well as city guides, personal airport transports, and very dearfriends over the years. I am forever stunned by your warmth, openness andhospitality.Zooming out from the particular project as such, towards the fertilegrounds surrounding me in time and space, I would like to pay tribute tothe network of academic sisterhood among (more and less) junior scholarsat the Department of Media and Communication Studies and beyond. Thebright minds, sharp tongues and big hearts of not least Anne Kaun, CarinaGuyard, Ingrid Forsler, Liisa Sömersalu, Julia Velkova, Maria Lönn andPaula Sartoretto are truly what have provided the everyday infrastructurenecessary for completing the lonesome task of writing a dissertation.Academia can often be a competitive and dull place, but you are living proofof that this doesn’t have to be the case.Which leads me to a brief acknowledgement of some of the people whosomehow turned my long-held aversions for studying into a passion,through encouragement and inspiration. These include but are far fromlimited to Ulla Manns, Ulrika Dahl and all the other teachers at GenderStudies at Södertörn, who showed me that learning could be emotional,personal and unpretentious. Further, I would never have followed throughwith a Master’s course in Media and Communications if it wasn’t for theencouragement from Kari Andén Papadopoulos, who saw me when nobodyelse bothered to, and pushed me through my media studies courses at theDepartment of Media Studies, Stockholm University. It importantlyincludes the academic mentoring and tutoring from Dirk Gindt, who longheld my hand until I could stand on my own. All of you have made me feelthat I can do more than I thought I could and pushed the boundaries until Isuddenly found myself in a PhD position.And so finally, on a more personal note, I want to give my warmestthanks to near and dear ones who have stood with me through this process.Thank you Rebecka, for your love, patience and solid belief in me. You havebeen a rock through the highs and lows of this bumpy journey, and I amsure that you are as happy as I am that it has now come to an end. I am so13

thankful for our life together, always being there to remind me that in fact adissertation is not the end of the world. I would also like to express mygratitude towards my parents, Ingrid Lindqvist and Lennart Gustafsson,who have never pressured me to engage in knowledge only for the sake ofknowledge itself, but taught me the fine art of critique.Last but not least, thank you to friends and family, for patiently listeningto my anxieties, respectfully nodding to preliminary results taken out ofcontext, as well as cheering me on occasions of academic megalomaniathroughout this seemingly endless project; to Kristian, Gregers, my parentsin law, and the Goddesses of all good things. Thank you.14

ContentsCHAPTER 1Introduction . 191.1 Aim and research questions . 281.2 Visibility and invisibility in queer digital media use . 301.2.1 Being seen or being exposed? . 311.2.2 Queer cartographies: mapping out queer others . 341.2.3 Online surveillance of queer populations . 361.3 Media phenomenology . 381.3.1 Making space “feel right” . 391.3.2 The sensing body in media use . 401.4 Summary and positioning . 411.5 Disposition of the book . 43CHAPTER 2“Queer” in Russia . 472.1 Regulating queer bodies . 482.1.1 The anti-gay law and contemporary public discourseon queerness . 512.1.2 Digital media regulations . 542.2 Queer lifestyles . 552.2.1 Saint Petersburg’s queer infrastructure. 582.2.2 Queer activism . 632.3 Queer theory de-westernized . 66CHAPTER 3A critical phenomenology of queer digital media use . 713.1 Space as socially produced . 713.1.1 Space and power . 723.1.2 The sexualization of space . 743.2 Perceptions of space and time . 773.2.1 The intentionality of the body . 773.2.2 The consciousness of internal time . 78

3.2.3 Critical phenomenology and the habituation of difference . 803.2.4 The straight orientation of space . 843.3 To be embodied with and through digital media . 873.3.1 The multiply positioned media user. 883.3.2 The production of space through me

A desire path (often referred to as desire line in transportation planning [ ]) is a path created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot-fall or traffic. [ ] Desire paths emerge as shortcuts where

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