What affect proposes: swiping as a bodily practice

Abstract

Choosing a partner has turned into swiping since the emergence of dating technologies. Today, individuals predominantly choose their partners via dating platforms by swiping their profiles with a quick thumb movement. The literature argues that mate preference is a static and disembodied disposition, where one’s intersectional background plays a role. Focusing on heterosexual individuals’ swiping practices in Turkey, this article aims to challenge this structural argument and suggests an affective approach to online dating. The concept of affect encourages more than a focus on the structures that influence mate choice. Emphasising the body’s capacity to act and be acted on, environments and thought-in-action, it draws attention to different orienting forces involved in swiping. As such focus requires a different methodology, this study uses the walkthrough and video re-enactment techniques to examine the mate selection practice. Based on interviews with 42 individuals who use Tinder and/or OkCupid, it shows how swiping is not only techno-socially shaped but also a bodily practice. Technological design, one’s mood and the sensation that arises through the encounter between the individual and the profile affect swiping decisions which can be both consistent and inconsistent with one’s techno-socially shaped criteria. By suggesting an affective perspective, this article makes both a theoretical and methodological contribution to the field.