Aleksandr Lange

I am currently working on my PhD project titled Dating, love, and subjectivity in the age of digital capitalism. 

Recognizing the significant part dating apps play in regulating contemporary intimacies, social scientists have studied their various aspects: social construction of gender, reproduction of racial stereotyping, the influence of dating apps’ architecture on the self and self-presentation, the spatialization and gamification of dating. Some of these inquiries focus on the phenomenological aspect of dating app use, while others address the issues from a broader structural perspective, with only few touching upon the political economy of digital capitalism. There is no study, however, that would integrate the micro and macro levels of dating app analysis in a comprehensive way, bridging the app user experience of dating and romance with the larger discursive, technological, and economic context it is embedded in. I will also emphasise the pivotal role of space and urban environments in shaping these dynamics, specifically focusing on the city of Berlin. By analysing how the city's cultural, socio-economic, and architectural landscape influences dating app usage, the study will offer a nuanced understanding of the digital-physical interface in the context of dating apps. Thus, the objective of my research is to address this gap and bring several strains of analysis together. My research will broadly consist of three interconnected levels. 
First level. The experience of intimacy among dating app users who identify as queer and live in Berlin.
Second level. The architecture, design and marketing of dating apps. This level connects user experience with digital capitalist principles through the interface of the app and the narratives that are used to market the app (among other things).
Third level. Digital capitalist economy that is characterized by increasing quantification, operationalization and manipulation of human experience that is represented as sets of data.

Overall, I am interested in finding out how dating apps contribute to structuring of our experiences of intimacy in a neoliberal (datafied) city, seen through political economic and phenomenological lenses.