ABSTRACT
A large part of the scholarship on the ‘platform phenomenon’ considers it a rupture, focusing on the affordances of apps, portals, and platforms. In contrast, we understand platforms as part of an evolutionary process where information and technology have been incrementally harnessed to reformulate novel forms of market systems. With this in mind, we delve into the platformisation of two types of ‘matchmaking’ practices in India. While the first pertains to traditional social economies around ‘arranged marriages’, the second reflects a decisively modern form of sociability, that of dating. We find both types of matchmaking platforms refracting their embeddedness, which also acts as a force to domesticate interruptions in existing social economies. We then explore digital matchmaking in light of two anxieties in debates on the platform phenomenon. The first pertains to their industrial dynamics, where we explicate the accumulation of interests and platform interdependencies that characterise matchmaking platforms. The second pertains to issues of trust, where we focus on mechanisms adopted by platforms to inculcate trust and users’ navigation of these mechanisms. Insights from our chapter could open up debates on the sufficiently distinct traits of matchmaking platforms in India compared to elsewhere in the global South/North.
