Panel: Queer Migration and Digital Practices

The School of Sociology and Social Policy, the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS) , and the Centre for Interdiscidisciplinary Gender Studies (CIGS) are pleased to invite you to the panel “Queer Migration & Digital Practices.”  Our guest speakers, Dr Yener Bayramoğlu (University of York) and Dr Łukasz Szulc (University of Manchester), will discuss their current research about LGTBIQ+ Polish and Turkish migrants and diasporas and their entanglement with different digital platforms.

Date: 12 February 2025 12:15 - 13:30

Location : 12.21/12.25 Social Sciences Building

This event is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences events for the LGTBIQ+ history month. You can check the further agenda here.

The presentations will be as follows:

Digital Homing: Ambivalent Digital Practices of Belonging within Turkey’s Queer Diaspora (Dr Yener Bayramoğlu)

Writing in the 1990s, before the rise of social media, Avtar Brah conceptualised "home" not as a static architectural space but as a dynamic site shaped by everyday practices of belonging, encounters, and connections that foster a sense of rootedness. Brah highlights the significance of seemingly mundane elements—such as "sounds and smells" or "heat and dust"—in cultivating a sense of belonging within a society. In this talk, I will reinterpret Brah’s concept of homing in the context of the digital era, exploring how the repetitive, everyday use of digital media contributes to the formation of a queer diaspora across borders. The talk will situate this analysis against the backdrop of the recent backlash against queers in Turkey, which has become a driving force for many individuals seeking new homes. Through digital ethnography, participant observation within queer migrant collectives, and interviews conducted in Berlin and London, the concept of ‘digital homing’ bridges online and offline spaces, examining how digital media influences queer migrants’ understanding of home—not only as an architectural or physical space interwoven with digital technologies, but also as a feeling of belonging to a community, city, or diaspora. Yet, informed by queer, feminist, and postcolonial critiques, the concept sheds light on how home remains as a deeply ambivalent site. It is burdened with heteronormative, nationalistic connotations, and, increasingly, implicated in systems of surveillance that connect queer migrants to forms of border control.

Swiping Across Borders: Sad Dating Apps and Queer Migrants (Dr Łukasz Szulc)

Popular and scientific reports suggest that dating apps make their users sad. Research blames this on the commodification of love, sex, and intimacy, enhanced by digital technology. Dating apps are accused of giving a false sense of free choice between abundant potential partners and providing tools for atomising people and filtering through them, while many caution against the growing dependency on dating apps. In this talk, I will draw on 30 interviews with Polish LGBTQs in the UK to challenge the conflation of dating apps with feeling sad by making a distinction between ‘sad dating apps’ and ‘sad dating app users.’ I will demonstrate complex user agency in recognising the flaws of platformized dating cultures and dealing with them creatively, advocating research that goes beyond relatively privileged users and global dating apps to better understand the role of digital technology in society and culture, especially at the intersection of emotions and agency.

Speakers:

Dr Yener Bayramoğlu is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York. His research focuses on the role of media technologies in migration, border control, social and cultural transformations, temporalities, and the experiences of queer individuals. Publications available here

Dr Łukasz Szulc (he/him) is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture and Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Humanities, Cultures and Media at the University of Manchester. He specializes in critical and cultural studies of digital media at the intersections of gender, sexuality and transnationalism, currently working on dating apps and dating cultures. Publications available here.