ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how locative media—location-based mobile technologies—shape the experience and constitution of queer urban space. Adopting the notion of “safe(r) space” as an analytical starting point, it interrogates how Grindr, the world's largest social networking app for LGBTQ+ people, shapes logics of spatialization and drives different modes of refiguration. Based on empirical research conducted in Cape Town and Berlin, it argues that increasing digital mediatization changes existing understandings of safe(r) space. Rather than constituting a static and spatially fixed category, safe(r) space must in fact be conceptualized as a spatial practice that aligns different spatial figures and temporarily stabilizes social action. Advancing this line of argumentation, the chapter illustrates three safe(r) spacing practices that showcase prevailing logics of digitally mediated spatial conflict: eventization, location sharing, and territorialization. Suggesting a shift from place to practice, it contributes to existing literature at the intersection of sociology, queer, and media studies by contending that digital mediatization can be studied more productively through the notion of safe(r) spacing.
