scholarly journals Chinese affective platform economies: dating, live streaming, and performative labor on Blued

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 502-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuaishuai Wang

This article analyzes the political economy of sexually affective data on the Chinese gay dating platform Blued. Having launched in 2012 as a location-based dating app akin to Grindr, Blued has now become a multipurpose platform providing extra services such as newsfeeds and live streaming. Through the continuous imbrication of old and new functionalities and related affordances, users are transformed from dating subjects into performative laborers. Based on Internet ethnographic research that lasted 2 years, this article focuses on sexual-affective data flows (e.g. virtual gifting, following, liking, commenting, and sharing) produced by gay live streamers within the parameters of same-sex desires such as infatuation, sexual arousal, and online intimacy. It argues that these sexually affective data flows increasingly constitute key corporate assets with which Blued attracts venture capital. This analysis of live streamers and their viewers extends understandings of dating apps in two ways. First, it shows how these apps now function as business platforms on top of being channels for hooking up. Second, it emphasizes that whereas users created data freely, now it is produced by paid labor.

Sexualities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 934-950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuaishuai Wang

Drawing on interviews with 10 gay streamers and 30 viewers, this article analyzes a new feature of live streaming on Blued, a Chinese gay male dating app. Live streaming invites users to either perform themselves or watch others perform. Unlike western gay dating apps that monetize users’ hooking-up encounters, the business model behind Blued instead capitalizes on affective encounters among gay streamers and viewers. Through paid virtual gifts, which circulate as affective signs, live streaming fosters and intensifies viewers’ intimate attachment to gay streamers. The virtual intimacy produced by gay live streaming entails a significant economic dimension, and is therefore stigmatized. In consequence, gay streamers do not see streaming as sex-related work, and paying viewers do not portray gifts as consumption. In understating the economic and sexual underpinnings of affective encounters mediated by live streaming, gay streamers and viewers not only reinforce heteronormativity, but also produce homonormativity.


1985 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie J. Wilson ◽  
Ibrahim Al-Muhanna

Author(s):  
Mary Pattillo ◽  
John N. Robinson

This article examines neighborhood poverty in the metropolis, a perspective known as “new metropolitan reality”—as opposed to one that is fixated on the central city. It first considers three bodies of research that make it possible to understand neighborhood poverty in the metropolis: the political economy of place, the economic causes of concentrated poverty, and household mobility patterns. It then reviews recent population trends in the United States that support the metropolitan perspective on poverty. It also explores neighborhood poverty on the ground by focusing on ethnographic research on poor neighborhoods in particular places. Finally, it discusses research on the effects of poor neighborhoods on residents and asks whether current policy approaches are equipped to address the new metropolitan reality of poverty.


2021 ◽  
pp. 102-120
Author(s):  
Francisca Yuenki Lai

The chapter investigates the imaginings of home projected by Indonesian domestic workers while they are working in Hong Kong. Their imaginaries of future home provide important information for understanding their desires and sexuality in relation to the local ideology of migration and marriage as well as the political economy of family, that is, the gender division of labor and earnings contributed by women. The chapter also enriches the notion of Asian queer subjectivity by addressing how Indonesian women insinuated their homoerotic desires into the heteronormative logic of home. Addressing the Islamic context, the chapter also attends to the unmarried women who would not continue a same-sex relationship after returning to their natal family.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (24) ◽  
pp. 228-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDRÉS GÓNGORA

Resumen:  El artá­culo sintetiza los resultados del trabajo etnográfico desarrollado con el movimiento cannabico de Colombia entre los años 2013 y 2017. En la primera parte, se muestra como la prohibición de las drogas en el paá­s surgió como un arreglo sanitario, moral y económico para monopolizar la producción de medicamentos y venenos. Se argumenta que el conocimiento sobre la relación entre las personas y el  pharmakon, desarrollado principalmente por expertos en seguridad pública, economá­a polá­tica y saberes  psi,  desconoce sistemáticamente la agencia polá­tica de los consumidores y pequeños productores de drogas. En la segunda parte, siguiendo la historia de la marihuana y sus defensores, se describe la lucha para  liberar  a la planta y permitir que ingrese de nuevo a los terrenos de la embriaguez tolerada, los remedios y la industria.Palabras clave:  Pharmakon.  Marihuana. Prohibicionismo.FARMACOPEIA POLáTICA:  uma etnografia do antiproibicionismo e da luta pela libertação da maconha na Colômbia  Resumo:  Neste artigo apresenta-se os resultados da pesquisa etnográfica desenvolvida com o movimento cannabico da Colômbia entre os anos 2013 e 2017. Na primeira parte, mostra-se como naquele paá­s a proibição das drogas surgiu como um arranjo sanitário, moral e econômico para monopolizar a produção de remédios e venenos. Argumenta-se que o conhecimento sobre a relação entre as pessoas e o  pharmakon,  desenvolvido principalmente por especialistas em segurança pública, economia polá­tica e saberes  psi, desconhece sistematicamente a agência polá­tica dos usuários e pequenos produtores de drogas. Na segunda parte, indo atrás da história da maconha e seus defensores, descreve-se a luta para  libertar  a planta e fazer com que ingresse novamente aos terrenos da embriaguez tolerada, os remédios e a indústria.Palavras-chave:  Pharmakon.  Maconha. Proibicionismo.POLICY  PHARMACOPEIA:  an ethnography of anti-prohibitionism and the struggle for the liberation of marijuana in Colombia  Abstract:  This article presents the results of the ethnographic research developed with the cannabis movement of Colombia between the years 2013 and 2017. Firstly, it is shown how in that country, drug prohibition emerged as a sanitary, moral and economic arrangement to monopolize the production of medicines and poisons. It is argued that knowledge about the relationship between people and  pharmakon, developed mainly by specialists in public security, political economy and  psi    knowledge, systematically ignores the political agency of users and small drug producers. Secondly, searching the history of marijuana and its advocates, it describes the struggle to free the plant and get it back into the grounds of tolerated drunkenness, the medicine and industry.Keywords:  Pharmakon. Marijuana. Prohibitionism.  PHARMACOPÉE POLITIQUE: une ethnographie de l”™antiprohibitionnisme et de la lutte pour la libération du cannabis en Colombie  Résumé: Cet article mobilise les résultats d”™une recherche ethnographique réalisée avec le mouvement cannabique colombien entre 2013 et 2017. Dans la premiá¨re partie, on montre comment, dans ce pays la prohibition des drogues a émergé á  partir d”™un arrangement sanitaire, moral et économique destiné á  monopoliser la production des remá¨des et poisons. On affirme que la connaissance produite autour du rapport entre les personnes et le  pharmakon, développée principalement par des spécialistes en sécurité publique, économie politique et savoirs psy, ignore systématiquement l”™expertise politique des usagers et des petits producteurs de drogues. Dans la deuxiá¨me partie, en suivant l”™histoire du cannabis et de ses défenseurs, on décrit la lutte pour  libérer  la plante et pour la réintégrer á  nouveau dans les champs de l”™ivresse tolérée, des médicaments et de l”™industrie.Mots-clés:  Pharmakon. Cannabis. Prohibitionnisme.


Sexualities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136346072199926
Author(s):  
Sharif Mowlabocus

One would not typically think of chemsex as a practice structured by the same political ideology that spawned ‘the new homonormativity’. For one thing, the gay press (a key mediator of homonormative thinking) has spilt much ink demonizing both the practice and practitioners of chemsex. Chemsex is framed in opposition to the ‘good gays’ that appear on same-sex wedding invitations or in advertisements for furniture stores or travel companies. Meanwhile, scholars have identified the ways in which chemsex embodies a response to both the political-economic landscape of neoliberalism, and the dominant model of homosexuality. From this perspective, chemsex appears antithetical to the political-economy of late capitalism, and to homonormativity. Building on critical discussions of this sexual practice, this article maps the complicated political terrain in which chemsex operates. Drawing on in-depth interviews with active and former practitioners, I suggest that chemsex occupies an ambivalent position in relation to the politics of homonormativity.


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