Understanding Tinder's role in the making and remaking of social relations between women from Yogyakarta and tourist men from the Global North

Abstract

While much tourism research to date has addressed the problematic power relations that exist between tourist men from the Global North and local women in the Global South, the significance of the geosocial dating apps that are increasingly shaping social encounters between them requires investigation. This study aimed to explore the role that Tinder's materiality plays in the making and remaking of social relations between Yogyakartan women and tourists from the Global North. A bricolage research design was employed comprising an online questionnaire (n = 22), semi-structured one-to-one interviews with Yogyakartan women on text-messaging app WhatsApp (n = 16) and a critical analysis of Tinder's user experience design (UXD) using a walkthrough method and blended (auto)ethnography. Grounded Theory Analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) identified five higher order categories: 'Circumventing social surveillance', 'Locals reinforce cultural scripts', 'Searching for difference', 'Tourists reinforce colonial stereotypes', and 'Becoming a Tinder Tourist'. A substantive theory was generated to reveal that Yogyakartan women are using Tinder to connect with tourists from the Global North in the hope of circumventing domestic gender-related oppression. However, because Tinder's user-experience design amplifies axes of racialized difference, Yogyakartan women become subject to transnational gender-related oppressions that place them at an increased risk of sexual violence. This study advances the discipline of Critical Tourism Studies by investigating the experiences of Yogyakartan women's use of geosocial dating apps in travel and tourism landscapes to identify how cultural scripts embedded into geosocial technologies amplify the social vulnerabilities of women from the Global South.

Date of Award	2018
Original language	English