Description: Explores how queer men use their smartphones to feel in control of their intimate lives in a times of crisis
Brief description: Jamie Hakim is Lecturer at King's College London, UK. His research interests lie at the intersection of digital culture, intimacy, embodiment and care. His book Work That Body: Male Bodies in Digital Culture was published in 2019. He was principle investigator on the Digital Intimacies project. He's also co-investigator on the AHRC funded 'Public Health Messaging during the COVID Pandemic: Dating App Usage and Sexual Wellbeing among Men Who have Sex with Men'.
Review Quotes:
"Digital Intimacies offers a conceptually sophisticated and politically timely contribution to the digital media studies, queer theory, and cultural studies ... Compelling and necessary read." --Studies on Asia
"Rather than simply cataloguing the opportunities and challenges that mobile phones present for gay men's intimacy, Digital Intimacies provides an insightful dual framework of vulnerability and control that illuminates the intricacies of digital intimacy within the context of post-neoliberal times." --Lik Sam Chan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong "This is an important and deeply affecting book. It not only illuminates the ways in which the smartphone is changing experiences and practices of intimacy among queer men, but also locates vulnerability at the centre of a new understanding of intimate life. Situated against the devastating crises of contemporary capitalism - including Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the Windrush scandal - Digital Intimacies: Queer Men and Smartphones in Times of Crisis represents nothing less than a bold and original attempt to define the contours of a post-neoliberal conjuncture. Social research at its finest." --Rosalind Gill, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK "This book represents an essential contribution to the study of queer men and their complex relationships with their smartphones, as well as to broader discussions about digitally-mediated desires and politics. It is meticulously researched and deftly blends theory with the foregrounding of lived experiences, offering profound insights into the intersections of technology, identity, and our global crisis ordinary." --Shaka McGlotten, Purchase College, State University of New York, USA