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Progress in Human Geography 1–23 Inviting the stranger in: Intimacy, ª The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines: digital technology and new sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0309132520961881 geographies of encounter journals.sagepub.com/home/phg

Regan Koch Queen Mary University of London, UK Sam Miles London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK

Abstract Digital technologies are profoundly reshaping how people relate to unknown others, yet urban studies and geographies of encounter have yet to adequately incorporate these changes into theory and research. Building on a longstanding concern with stranger encounters in social and urban theory, this paper explores how digital technology brings new possibilities and challenges to urban life. With examples ranging from GPS- enabled apps for sex and dating to sharing economy platforms that facilitate the peer-to-peer exchange of services, new practices mediated by digital technology are making many stranger encounters a matter of choice rather than chance, and they are often private as much as they are public. This paper examines these changes to develop a conceptualisation of stranger intimacy as a potentially generative form of encounter involving conditional relations of openness among the unacquainted, through which affective structures of knowing, providing, befriending or even loving are built. We offer an agenda for researching stranger inti- macies to better understand their role in generating new kinds of social and economic opportunity, over- coming constraints of space and place, as well as generating dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, privilege and disadvantage. The paper concludes by considering what critical attention to these encounters can offer geographical scholarship and how an emphasis on digital mediation can push research in productive directions.

Keywords digital technology, encounter, intimacy, sharing economy, strangers

I Introduction To inhabit the city is to live in a world of stran- gers. Encounters with unknown others are widely regarded as a defining feature of the Corresponding authors: urban experience (cf. Amin, 2012; Lofland, Regan Koch, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End 1974; Sennett, 1974; Simmel, 1950 [1908]). Road, London E1 4NS, UK. Email: [email protected] Affirmative accounts of the desires, opportuni- Sam Miles, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, ties and potentials emanating within cities often Keppel St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HT, UK. centre on interaction among strangers (cf. Carr Email: [email protected] 2 Progress in Human Geography XX(X) et al., 1993; Sennett, 2006; Stevens, 2007; theorisation on public life, meetings between Turner, 2003; Wood and Landry, 2007) and strangers are now frequently planned in advance they underpin normative visions of urban life and take place in relative privacy, increasingly as the cosmopolitan gathering of difference within spaces of the home. They are facilitated (cf. Jacobs, 1961; Sandercock, 1998; Young, via sophisticated digital methods and algo- 1990). The figure of ‘the stranger’ also features rithms for scoping, selecting and verifying in discourses of social anxiety, fear and danger potential contacts (Bialski, 2011; Germann (cf. Ahmed, 2000; Koefoed and Simonsen, Molz, 2014; Race, 2015). As contact among 2011), giving impulse to new forms of urban strangers becomes a matter of choice as much surveillance, segregation and control (Allen, as chance, many long-standing norms and con- 2006; Low and Smith, 2006; Minton, 2012). ventions through which intimacy and trust The balance between positive and negative among strangers is negotiated are being recon- feelings towards strangers in public culture, figured. These forms of encounter, however, Ash Amin (2012: 2) argues, results from the will not be readily available to everyone, every- synthesis of habits of interaction, ‘through where. For not only do technological develop- intricate and often interwoven sets of biopoli- ments bring forth novel kinds of pleasure and tical, behavioural and affective forces that are possibility, they also entail new forms of social simultaneously ingrained and unstable’. distancing and exclusion. Indeed, to live in the city is to participate in a Against this background, the paper has three routine calculus of exchange with unknown aims. First, it seeks to place developments in others: ongoing negotiations of proximity and digital technology more firmly into urban stud- boundaries premised on varying degrees of ies and geographies of encounter. Our argument familiarity, intimacy and trust. here is not that urban inhabitants are necessarily This paper examines how stranger relations becoming more or less comfortable in the are being reconfigured by new social practices presence of strangers. Rather, it is that research- mediated through digital technologies. With ers concerned with questions of encounter examples ranging from location-based apps that and social (dis)connection too often ignore the connect people with similar interests, to online centrality of digital technology in much of con- platforms that facilitate the peer-to-peer temporary public life. Second, the paper con- exchange of services, emerging public cultures ceptualises stranger intimacy as a potentially of encounter are bringing new possibilities to generative form of encounter that technology urban life. Digital technologies are multiplying facilitates. Intimacy here is not understood as and extending the times and spaces where peo- simply romance or sex, but a wider epistemol- ple engage in dialogue and exchange. They are ogy for thinking about connection (Berlant, helping people overcome constraints such as 1998; Shah, 2011). Stranger intimacy is thus local cultural norms governing intimacy, as well defined broadly as conditional relations of as logistical barriers to meeting face-to-face or openness among the unacquainted, however in public. They are also extending access and fleeting, through which affective structures of experiences of intimacy to wider demographics, knowing, providing, befriending or even loving as digitally mediated encounters move from the are built. Our approach marks a distinction from niche into the mainstream (Hobbs et al., 2017; the focus on how strangers are often constructed Maalsen, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic as ‘Others’ in discourses of urban or national has accelerated and extended these trends in belonging (cf. Ahmed, 2000; Amin, 2012; Koe- unprecedented ways. In contrast to the focus foed and Simonsen, 2011). Instead, we draw on spontaneous encounters that underpin much attention to the digitally mediated practices Koch and Miles 3 through which encounters are valued and pur- the particular qualities and intensities this form sued. Third, this paper sets an agenda for of encounter entails. Identifying key principles researching stranger intimacies in order to better for future inquiry, we call for further investiga- understand their role in generating new kinds of tion into the ways in which individuals and social and economic opportunity, overcoming groups are differentially enabled to benefit from constraints of space and place, as well as gen- these developments. The paper concludes by erating dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, considering what critical attention to stranger privilege and disadvantage. Through these intimacies can offer geographical scholarship, aims, the paper challenges and extends scholar- particularly in light of the COVID-19 pan- ship concerned with geographies of encounter demic, and how an emphasis on digital media- (Valentine, 2008; Valentine and Sadgrove, tion can push research in productive directions. 2012, 2014; Wilson, 2017), practices of hospi- tality and intimacy (Bell, 2007; Miles, 2018; Germann Molz, 2014), public-private relations II Encountering the unknown other (Barnett, 2014; Qian, 2018) and home–city geo- The question of what it means to live in a world graphies (Blunt and Sheringham, 2019; Maal- of unknown others has been a foundational topic sen, 2020). A key contribution offered here is a in social and urban theory. Initiated by the clas- demonstration of the profound impacts that sic writings of George Simmel (1950 [1908]), digital technologies are having on how people ‘the stranger’ is a relational figure who enters often meet, raising new questions about emer- into an existing group that defines itself through ging geographies of home, public and private, spatial boundaries. The stranger’s arrival may the domestic and the urban, and the changing be welcomed or contested, but either way their ways that people live and relate to one another presence produces ‘a specific form of interac- in contemporary society. tion’ (1950 [1908]: 402) in which judgements of The paper proceeds as follows. Section II belonging, inclusion/exclusion and place critically examines how encounters with attachment/detachment must be reckoned with unknown others have been problematised (cf. Koefoed and Simonsen, 2011). Elsewhere, through the figure of ‘the stranger’ in social and Simmel (2010 [1903]) incorporates the stranger urban theory. It highlights a tendency in the encounter as an ordinary, fundamental feature literature on encounter to neglect the impacts of metropolitan life – a key component of the of digital technological change and shows that intense bombardment of external stimuli that research tends to narrowly conceive where and individuals must register, evaluate and manage how encounters with strangers often take place. as part of the everyday. Routine-ness thus ren- Section III outlines how mobile and location- ders stranger relations as largely ambivalent, based digital technologies are reshaping intensifying only when threats, desires or oppor- encounters and intimate relations among stran- tunities are perceived. gers more broadly. We draw on our own The extent to which stranger encounters research over the last several years to sketch diminish traditional social ties and community new contours of stranger relations facilitated relations was the focus of much early urban by a) location-based media technologies for sex sociology (cf. Durkheim, 1933 [1889]; Park and and dating and b) new forms of entrepreneurial Burgess, 1925; To¨nnies, 1936 [1887]). It is a activity associated with the sharing economy. In theme returned to throughout much of the 20th Section IV, we conceptualise stranger intimacy century in writings on communities and urban as a way of describing relations of openness life, where relations of impersonality are under- among the unacquainted, and for attending to stood as generating problems of indifference, 4 Progress in Human Geography XX(X) alienation and insecurity (cf. Bauman, 2000; sentiments suggest a hardening against utopian Putnam, 2001; Putnam and Feldstein, 2004). visions (Amin, 2012). Public discourse on Conversely, Richard Sennett (1974) argues that, issues ranging from crime and social cohesion by the middle of the past century, experience to immigration and terrorism position the stran- gained in the company of strangers came to be ger as a figure whose very presence poses a seen as crucial to the formation of individual threat to urban public spaces and national bor- personalities. Without exposure to strangers, ders – constituting what Sara Ahmed (2000) ‘one might be too inexperienced, too naive, to calls ‘stranger danger’. Attributing unknown survive’ (1974: 24). In a similar vein, Haber- others to this category relies on prior histories mas’s (1989 [1962]) account of the emergent of encounter, and on mediated relations that bourgeois public sphere drew attention to the draw other bodies and other spaces into deter- domestic and commercial architectures that mining that the person being encountered has established distinctive spaces where private rea- already come too close. In the words of Koefoed son could be developed. Habermas and Sennett and Simonsen (2011: 346): ‘every time we meet both offer accounts that support narratives of the “undecidables” we seek to re-establish ways decline in public life over the late 20th century. of recognition, not only by reading the body of On the other hand, they can also be connected to this particular “stranger” but also by trying to more affirmative theorisations of cities as tell the difference between him/her and other ‘worlds of strangers’ (Lofland, 1974). Here, the strangers’. enchanting possibilities of encounter, the oppor- A great deal of geographical research in tunities for social learning and connection, the recent years has focused on the dynamics of freedom of anonymity among the crowd, and stranger encounters to inform academic and pol- the potential for solidarity amidst life shared icy debates about social cohesion. Notably, Gill in common provide reasons for celebrating Valentine (2008) outlined something of a ‘cos- urban life as the cosmopolitan gathering of dif- mopolitan turn’ early in the 21st century as ference (cf. Jacobs, 1961; Sandercock, 1998; influential geographers such as Amin (2006), Young, 1990). Laurier and Philo (2006), Massey (2005) and The ambivalence of the stranger is most fully Thrift (2005) contemporaneously retheorised articulated in the work of Zygmunt Bauman urban togetherness. Although scantly incorpor- (1991, 2000) who extends Simmel’s epochal ating developments brought forth by digital characterisation of stranger relations. In moder- technology, this body of work called for greater nity, Bauman argues, the figure of the stranger attention to the potential for pluralistic and was taken to represent all that was excluded and hybrid cultures to form through relations of delegitimated in discourses of order, sameness proximity and encounter with strangers in and totality (Bauman, 1995). Individuals and spaces of public life. This has been borne out communities identify strangers in order to in research ranging from examinations of every- define themselves, constructing them as ‘Oth- day life in diverse urban neighbourhoods (Koe- ers’ as boundaries are drawn and borders are foed and Simonsen, 2011; Wessendorf, 2013, enforced (cf. Ahmed, 2006; Faier and Rofel, 2014) as well as smaller cities and towns (Leit- 2014; Said, 1978). Postmodernity, in contrast, ner, 2012; Swanton, 2010). Such work has sees the stranger no longer as a threat to social inquired into the routine encounters involved order, ‘but a reminder of difference to be cele- in activities such as shopping at markets (Wat- brated, protected and lovingly preserved’ (Bau- son, 2006), bus passengering (Wilson, 2011), man, 2000: 54). And yet, denunciations of walking and cycling (Brown, 2012; Middleton, multiculturalism and the spread of xenophobic 2018), tourism (Gibson, 2010) and migrant Koch and Miles 5 integration and community cohesion projects of any inquiry into how unknown others meet in (Askins and Pain, 2011; Matejskova and Leit- contemporary society. Indeed, failure to fore- ner, 2011). It has also extended to more-than- ground the digital can give a skewed sense of human geographies of organisms, objects, what many forms of social connection entail. materialities and atmospheres that constitute For example, Wilson argues that encounters urban experiences, attention to which can help have historically been coded as a meeting of in grasping dynamics of encounter and social opposites, read through Manichean grammars interaction (Darling and Wilson, 2016; Gandy, of ‘us vs them’ (Rovisco, 2010). But the sug- 2012; Latham and McCormack, 2004). gestion that encounters ‘are fundamentally Reflecting on this cosmopolitan turn, Valen- about difference’ (2010: 452) precludes a con- tine (2008) called for geographers to avoid any sideration of the way digital platforms and romanticisation of the possibilities of encounter social media technologies are often about con- and instead consider more critically how differ- necting those with shared affinities and similar ent forms of contact may translate into attitudes interests. Relatedly, while Wilson notes that of respect for difference, but equally may leave ‘common descriptors of encounter present it as intolerant values unmoved or even hardened. A a meeting that is ‘casual’, ‘undesigned’ or key research theme has thus become examining ‘chance’ (p. 462), in geographies of encounter particular ways in which ‘enchantment’ and dis- enabled by new digital technologies the very enchantment emerge through interaction and opposite is often true. The platforms proliferat- cohabitation with difference (cf. Darling and ing in both sharing economies and sex and dat- Wilson, 2016; McNally, 2019; Teo and Neo, ing applications broker meetings that are not 2017; Watson, 2006; Wessendorf, 2013; Wil- exactly spontaneous. They have more likely son, 2011). Working in this vein, Helen Wilson resulted from searching, screening, selecting has offered an open-ended reading of encounter and engaging in online dialogue. Rather than that recognises a mixed bag of possible emo- being undesigned, face-to-face meetings are tions and attachments: meeting strangers can deliberately arranged for mutual availability be ‘joyful, fearful, anxious, uncanny, enchant- and convenience, and they are not chance ing and hopeful, and how they are named and encounters (serendipitous though these may experienced as such is of critical import’ (2017: be, especially where romance is concerned) but 459). She argues that encounter is under- premeditated. Finally, although it has been theorised and calls for different kinds of recognised that the fleeting nature of encounter encounters to be considered more fully to under- has been overemphasised to the detriment of stand what they might entail. And yet, like most attending to more sustained engagements geographers working on questions of encounter, (Valentine and Sadgrove, 2012; Wilson, Wilson follows Valentine in focusing on 2017), the extent to which digital technology encounters that are primarily spontaneous and facilitates more enduring relationships has not face-to-face, missing a whole range of scenarios been fully explored. through which digital technology brokers Importantly, stranger encounters are not only human contact (although see Adams, 2017; public but often private or domestic too. Valen- Cockayne et al., 2017; Miles, 2017; Richardson, tine and Sadgrove (2014: 1981) have questioned 2015). the ‘primary focus on urban public spaces as Given that encounter has been located as sites of encounter’ in their call for more atten- ‘firmly within the remit of difference, rupture tion to the ‘significance of both “private” and and surprise’ (Wilson, 2017: 452), we argue that institutional spaces where individuals’ under- digital technology should be a fundamental part standings of difference are negotiated and 6 Progress in Human Geography XX(X) contested’. This call has yet to be fully taken up, (Burrell, 2014; Koch and Latham, 2013; Kumar although queer scholarship has long highlighted and Mukarova, 2008), here we are interested in the way in which quasi-public or private spaces inverting this orientation to focus on the process such as bathhouses, salons, sex clubs or the of inviting unknown others in. Blunt and Sher- domestic space of home have provided impor- ingham’s discussion provides a helpful way of tant sites for encounter and the formation of understanding the enfolding of home with wider counter-public spheres (Berlant and Warner, urban social and material contexts, although it 1998; Chauncey, 1995; Warner, 2002). Indeed, does not consider the role that digital technol- the home – often (incorrectly) understood to ogy often plays in these processes. Apps and be a sacred, sealed-off interior distinct from digital networking platforms have become key public life (cf. Blunt and Dowling, 2006; Kaika, to how many people find a home. As housing 2004) – is frequently a site where stranger costs increase and ownership rates decline, this intimacy takes place (Gorman-Murray, 2006; increasingly means sharing one’s home with Maalsen, 2020; Race, 2015). A range of femin- previously unknown others. Maalsen (2020) has ist scholarship has drawn attention to how the demonstrated that shared housing is now prac- home has served as a meeting point through tised longer and by wider demographics than which women have long connected and mobi- previous generations, and that digital platforms lised (Hayden, 1984; Shiach, 2005; Wilson, are key to access and experiences of home shar- 1992). Conceptually and empirically, home is ing. Platforms are also now central to how many a well-established focus of geographical people meet and communicate with neighbours research, understood as a physical and imagin- and area residents, discover local events and ary space key for identity formation and belong- services, and navigate the wider cityscape. Fur- ing, but also a space bound up in relations of ther, in contexts of mobility such as tourism and power and often a locus of alienation, fear and business travel, platform technologies that con- even violence (Blunt, 2005; Blunt and Dowling, nect people to fellow travellers, local residents 2006; Brickell, 2012; Gorman-Murray, 2006). and private homes are increasingly common However, we argue that contemporary reconfi- strategies for developing meaningful relations gurations of digital technology re-present home as part of their travels (Bialski, 2011, 2012; as a generative site for thinking about stranger Germann Molz, 2014). relations. We now turn to examine different forms of Blunt and Sheringham’s (2019: 829–830) ‘inviting the stranger in’ facilitated by digital recent work on ‘home-city geographies’ calls technology. Our aim is to draw attention to for a more robust examination of ‘the interplay day-to-day practices through which social con- between lived experiences of urban homes and nections and economic opportunities are pur- the contested domestication of urban space’. sued through meeting people outside of one’s They develop an agenda that emphasises how existing networks. Strangers are conceived dwelling and mobilities intersect between throughout as simply unknown others, rather domestic and urban scales and unsettle the than as discursively constructed figures of boundaries between them. We suggest that work exclusion. For as Koefoed and Simonsen in this vein might also attend to the ways in (2011: 346) argue, ‘the stranger takes up differ- which homes are increasingly sites of encounter ent roles depending on the context in which the and new social relations (cf. Bialski, 2011, relation is performed’. Instead of pivoting 2018; Koch, 2020). While a number of research between optimistic and pessimistic interpreta- engagements have stepped out of domestic tions of the figure of the stranger and the times spaces to examine sites of home-making we are living in, we want to promote more Koch and Miles 7 sustained inquiries into how, why and to what (Rheingold, 2002; Kitchin and Dodge, 2011; effect people go about engaging with unknown Farman, 2012; Miles, 2017). Today, locative others in an effort to develop new forms of con- media technologies that use GPS to locate other nection, intimacy and income. app users in the vicinity have come to play a key role in the social landscape of modern societies. Their use has proliferated with the wider adop- III New technologies of stranger tion of 3G, 4G and mobile Wi-Fi that facilitate encounter high-bandwidth internet. Location-based apps for sex and dating such as Tinder and Grindr are This section focuses on two domains in which only a decade old, but count many millions of stranger encounters are brokered through digital users globally (Bearne, 2018), including a dis- technology, drawing on our own research in the proportionately high membership amongst sex- US and UK. First, we consider GPS-enabled ual minorities (Anderson, 2018; Duguay, 2019). location-based apps through which people meet Two key features make current partner- one another for sex or dating. Second, we look at seeking technologies distinctive in how they peer-to-peer networks associated with so-called multiply routes to, and the nature of, encounter: ‘sharing economies’ through which people con- their portability and their locational ability. nect to exchange goods, services, experiences or They are built into smartphones or tablets that accommodation. These two examples represent people can take wherever they go, and they distinct domains of social life yet share com- enable the user to search for others within an monalities in their use of digital technology that area also interested in finding someone for positions strangers as potential customers, col- friendship, dating or sex. Whether one is inside laborators, hosts, guests, friends or romantic their home or out in the city, at leisure, work or partners. They also show how the times and in transit, they can overlay physical reality with spaces of encounter and engagement are multi- a set of virtual capacities that facilitate seeing, plied and extended via apps and digital plat- being seen by, and interacting with potential forms. We use these examples to set up a matches. In earlier, less mobile, iterations of conceptual framework for stranger intimacy in digital technology, a person generally had to Section IV to better understand and critically be in the same physical space to meet someone analyse how digital technologies are reshaping new, or periodically check in to receive mes- social encounters and connections. sages via classified ads, telephone hotlines or desktop websites. Today’s conditions of ‘con- 1 Sex and dating apps stant connectivity’ (Gordon and de Souza e Intimate encounters with strangers have been Silva, 2011) mean that one is almost always technologically mediated for a long time. From online and able to send and receive messages. ‘lonely hearts’ adverts in newspapers to online Further, these products extend possibilities for chatrooms, technologies have expedited love initiating contact via a ‘wave’, ‘woof’, ‘nudge’ and/or sexual encounters with progressively or ‘match’. These provide private ways of work- greater specificity and in shorter time frames ing around the social anxieties of ‘impression (Campbell, 2004; Cocks, 2002; Grov et al., management’ in public spaces (Goffman, 1959) 2013; Miles, 2018). Virtual worlds were ini- by offering ‘tickets’ for conversation among the tially conceptualised as distinct from ‘real’ unacquainted (Sacks et al., 1992) in ways that spaces, but as technology has progressed, are casual, quick and often playful. Indeed, the digital-physical hybridisation has led to more intensity of impression management is poten- sustained relationships between the two entities tially reworked digitally as the time of 8 Progress in Human Geography XX(X) encounter is stretched temporally and can take popular culture in part because of the ubiquity place shielded from the public embarrassment of the in-home first date or sexual encounter, of rejection or more serious consequences that typically pre-arranged through an app (Roose, can come with transgressing social norms and 2015). This is not true for all people, of course – taboos. housing conditions for many make it difficult or Another key aspect of how location-based impossible to have a stranger around. Safety is apps are reshaping encounters is that they another concern, as letting a stranger in to the enable users to scope, verify and filter potential home (or entering into the home of a stranger) matches with far greater efficiency than previ- can come with all kinds of risks. However, ous formats. Vastly more potential partners can meetings outside the home are not always safe be found online than are present in physical either. Arranging first encounters with unknown venues such as bars or nightclubs, so the time others in the relative privacy of home is popular spent searching for encounters is theoretically because it often requires less effort, is more condensed. However, the sense of immediacy efficient, more comfortable, and more discreet promulgated by apps means that, paradoxically, than meeting out in public (Gorman-Murray, users often articulate their experiences as a 2006). waste of time (Miles, 2017). In keeping with Sex and dating apps demonstrate how the rather mixed verdicts on the lived experiences very nature of encounter is changing as a result of ‘mediated’ or ‘networked intimacy’ (Att- of mobile digital technologies. They multiply wood et al., 2017; Chan, 2018; Cockayne possibilities for engaging with unknown others, et al., 2017; Hobbs et al., 2017), some users feel connecting people physically or virtually who that apps serve as a barrier to intimacy, because are just metres away but might not otherwise too much information shared in advance negates meet, as well as stretching what it means to be the serendipity of physical encounter, or proximate, allowing users to search and com- because users become habituated to the routine municate across a much wider geographical ter- of continuously seeking out new contacts at the ritory. They call into question the nature of cost of developing existing relationships (Miles, encounter as serendipitous, undesigned or 2017, 2019; Race, 2015). App use also entails chance (cf. Turner, 2003; Watson, 2008; Wil- various forms of ‘digital labour’ (Richardson, son, 2017), for they are premised on the effi- 2015; Scholz, 2013) including setting up and ciencies of being able to scope, filter and cultivating one’s profile, marketing oneself in screen potential partners with remarkable spe- a way that invites interest, needing to frequently cificity in terms of desired traits. Operating check into the app, and engaging in online con- through mobile devices means that encounters versations that are unwanted or ‘go’ nowhere. can be untethered from fixed spaces or times; Technologically-mediated forms of sex and for sexual minorities in particular this brings the dating have always diverged from more tradi- potential of queering spaces and providing tional formats, in that the first meeting is not a routes to encounter that might otherwise be dan- face-to-face encounter: it takes place in writing, gerous or impossible. Many gay and bisexual on the phone, or via images on a screen. When it men have seen these technologies become cen- comes to meeting in person, location-based tral not only to how sex and dating are arranged, media technology has helped to popularise the but as part of wider socialities of friendship, sidestepping of public or quasi-public meeting local networking and information gathering environments in favour of the domestic space of (Miles, 2019; Wu and Ward, 2018). However, the home. The phrase ‘Netflix and chill’ has these technologies have also been hugely influ- become a common trope in Anglo-American ential to mainstream, heterosexual audiences Koch and Miles 9 too. Encounter and interaction through apps and profoundly, digital platforms and apps offer digital platforms have become a fundamental mechanisms for verifying reputation and leav- part of the contemporary landscape of sex, dat- ing public feedback, greatly extending possibi- ing and friendship among strangers in many lities for trust among strangers to be established public cultures around the world. online prior to meeting in person (Germann Molz, 2014). One’s presentation-of-self and ‘digital reputation’ (Hearn, 2010) can operate 2 Sharing economies as a form of currency, providing premium Over the past decade, there has been pro- access to networks and opportunities (Botsman nounced enthusiasm and investment directed and Rogers, 2010; Germann Molz, 2014). New towards new forms of exchange that open up possibilities for monitoring accountability have resources and relationships normally considered made people more comfortable opening up pri- private to a provisionally public audience. vate property to strangers. An early example of Enabled by digital technologies and online plat- this is ‘ridesharing’ companies like Uber, Lyft, forms, the term sharing economy is a ‘floating or Didi in China, that have made it common for signifier’ (Nadeem in Schor et al., 2015; drivers to use their own automobile as a taxi. Richardson, 2015) for an array of activities pre- Homes are also being opened up in new ways mised on peer-to-peer networks, often facili- through platforms like Sofar Sounds that turn tated by the reconfiguration of established studios or loft apartments into temporary event norms and spatial boundaries, and the subver- spaces in hundreds of cities around the world sion of formal regulations (Botsman and every night of the week (Janotti and Pieres, Rogers, 2010; Slee, 2016; Sundararajan, 2018), or secret supper clubs and underground 2016). Best known through corporate plat- restaurants in which homes become makeshift forms such as Airbnb or TaskRabbit but also restaurants for a night (Koch, 2020). practised through a host of smaller scale and Sharing economies are also fostering more non-commercial arrangements (Hall and Ince, intimate encounters at home. Travel accommo- 2018), novel kinds of ‘stranger sharing’ dation provides a particularly apt example. (Schor, 2014) are transforming how millions Couchsurfing.com, counting 15 million mem- of people globally organise entertainment, hos- bers worldwide, connects those travelling with pitality, accommodation, transportation, and hosts willing to let a stranger sleep on their the exchange of goods and services. floor, couch or spare bed. Remarkably, the plat- Stranger encounters facilitated by sharing form operates on a goodwill rather than finan- economies are not entirely new either: people cial basis; the platform stipulates that guests are have long invited others into their homes to per- forbidden from making payments, although form services such as cleaning, maintenance they are allowed to give small gifts. There is and repair, gardening and pet care. Platforms more than just a gift economy at work, however. such as TaskRabbit essentially provide an Successful host/guest exchanges make both par- updated way of connecting consumers to local ties more attractive to others when seeking out listings for individuals and agencies offering future stays. Ethnographic research has high- services. A key point of distinction is that digi- lighted how users are afforded an array of tisation facilitates more efficient forms of opportunities for meeting new people, personal searching, comparing, communicating, and growth and shared experiences, saving money making payment; ‘informational interactions’ and having unique and pleasant travels (Bialski, (Wittel, 2001) that reduce reliance on pre- 2011, 2012; Ince and Bryant, 2018; Schuckert existing communities or local knowledge. More et al., 2018). Yet the encounters facilitated 10 Progress in Human Geography XX(X) are not always altruistic. They can involve inter- They are an important source of income and actions marked by tension, awkwardness and cost-savings for many people, yet as Bialski burdensome expectations, such as guests feeling (2018: 83) puts it, they have also ‘placed some compelled to engage in sustained conversa- of the most intimate and private spheres for tion (Bialski, 2012). Perhaps unsurprisingly, purchase: namely, the home and everything that commercially-driven forms of peer-to-peer comes with it: privacy, intimacy, candidness, accommodation have become far more com- and authenticity’. This raises new questions mon. Ubiquitous in this regard is Airbnb, about the ways that financial motivations often which connects those renting out a spare underpin different forms of contact, as well as room or an entire home to another traveller. how market forces redefine sociability and enter Users are verified by the company’s platform, into affective domains of life. However, this and are then able to search their travel destina- section has also shown that encounters brokered tion and filter potential hosts according to doz- through sharing economies are often more than ens of preferences. Hosts in turn are able to vet solely economic. They are frequently premised potential guests. This inevitably leads to filter- on acts of ‘lighter touch sociality’ (Thrift, 2005) ing based on homophilic affinity and discrimi- that characterise convivial forms of urban nation based on prejudice (Edelman et al., togetherness. They also involve forms of care 2017). However, for frequent users, the vetting and mutually beneficial exchange (Ince and process becomes routine – compressed such Bryant, 2018) that align with aspirations for the that a handful of positive reviews or the desig- ‘hospitable city’ to be forged through interac- nation ‘super host’ is enough for trust to be tions between hosts and guests (Bell, 2007). established and a room to be booked. The While arguments about the generative possibi- popularity of the platform’s ‘instant booking’ lities of stranger sharing could easily be con- feature speaks to how common and commer- flated with techno-utopian framings of the cialised this form of inviting the stranger in has sharing economy, emerging critical scholarship become, as does the fact that many employers has outlined the need for rigorous inquiry into now provide reimbursement for business travel the impacts of these new practices and their using the site. Spending a night in a stranger’s differences across space and time (Hall and home has now become an ordinary part of Ince, 2018; Richardson, 2015). travel for millions of people around the world. To conclude this section, the examples of sex Sharing economy activities further demon- and dating apps and sharing economy platforms strate that conceptualisations of encounter need demonstrate how, for millions of people glob- to be adapted and refined. Spaces once seen as ally, meeting strangers online for intimate relatively bounded and off-limits to unknown encounters has become normalised. This is others are being opened up in multiple domains because doing so offers experiences and of social life, further extending Valentine and rewards that are convenient, informative, mean- Sadgrove’s (2014) reframing of encounter as ingful and which were less readily available in something primarily associated with public pre-digital times. We believe that as people con- space. At the same, digitally enabled peer-to- tinue to live highly mobile and interconnected peer networks are reconfiguring and, in some lives, digitally mediated forms of intimacy cases, sidestepping conventional boundaries among strangers will become an increasingly between what is public and what is private common part of everyday life. This is in part (Koch, 2020). Sharing economies frequently because, as Tuan (1986) suggested, strangers involve capitalising on domains of life are an infinite source of possibility for connec- conventionally removed from monetisation. tion, inspiration and renewal – for, as he notes, Koch and Miles 11 all friends and lovers were once strangers. At interpersonal relations of sharing space, know- the same time, apps and platforms, as well as ing, caring, providing and befriending one individual user experiences, are invariably con- another. While seemingly an oxymoron, placing nected to wider social capital processes through ‘stranger’ and ‘intimacy’ together signals that which actors attempt to gain social, cultural, strangers are often more-than-Other, while inti- economic or other kinds of desired advantage macy provides an epistemological frame for (Ellison et al., 2010). As digitally mediated attending to the formation of personal attach- encounters become mainstream, habits of inter- ments and engagements (cf. Berlant, 1998; action are being reworked and have the poten- Shah, 2011). Intimacy need not be understood tial to reinforce or unsettle the behavioural, narrowly as a romantic or sexual connection, biopolitical and affective forces figuring into although this may be part of it. Rather, it refers how strangers are routinely judged (cf. Ahmed, to an openness of the self and of personal space 2000; Amin, 2012). As geographers and urban as much as it does the body (Jamieson, 1998; scholars pursue these concerns alongside ques- Stoler, 2006). Stranger intimacy incorporates tions about the potential and dynamics of the willingness to engage in conversation with encounter, it is crucial that the changes being unknown others where meaningful stories, brought through digital technology are regis- experiences and inner feelings are exchanged. tered. The paper therefore now turns to conso- It can involve giving access to resources such as lidate an agenda for further research and a place to sleep, a seat in one’s car, space in the analysis. kitchen or bathroom, or even keys to the house. Such practices can be motivated by affective forces such as romantic or sexual pursuits, an IV Researching stranger intimacy ethic of care or hospitality, an interest in meet- How might geographers better engage with the ing new people and pursuing new cultural kinds of encounters being mediated through experiences, or simply the wish to make or save digital technology? Is there a need to rethink the money. Indeed, stranger intimacy often affirmative possibilities and critical concerns involves complex entanglements of social, psy- associated with urban life as a gathering of chological and economic desires. Understood strangers? To invite inquiry on questions such broadly, attending to stranger intimacy prompts as these, this section introduces stranger inti- researchers to consider wide ranging forms of macy as a way of describing encounters marked social connection, from transient forms of by openness and trust among the unacquainted. encounter to more lasting associations, through Doing so provides a conceptual frame for which people forge meaningful relationships attending to the particular qualities and intensi- outside of friend networks or institutions of ties that this form of relation can entail. It also family, work, school or community group opens up new avenues for geographic research (Shah, 2011). that examines the motivations and possibilities Intimate encounters among strangers some- of encounter, as well as ways that digital tech- times happen spontaneously through chance nology might diminish or restrict spontaneous meetings on public transport, in cafes and bars, forms of encounter. We then outline three prin- in queues and in waiting rooms, but coordinated ciples that any inquiry into the relations of digi- through digital technology they more often- tal technology, encounter and intimacy should than-not result from prior planning. This bear in mind. includes scoping platforms for potential Stranger intimacy provides a way of describ- matches, filtering for preferences, and commu- ing how unknown others engage in nicating to share information and establish trust. 12 Progress in Human Geography XX(X)

Judgements made rely on a digitally mediated through shared experiences, enabled and ‘metaphysics of encounter’ (Adams, 2017) that enhanced by digital systems of shared contacts, encompasses instincts and routinised beha- user reviews, financial security, and account- viours, including calculations based how others ability mechanisms that further enhance the appear visually and communicate textually, prospects for sharing and exchange among conditioned as these are by biopolitical groups (cf. Bialski, 2011; Ellison et al., 2007, impulses, prejudices and prior experiences (cf. 2010). Adams, 2017; Amin, 2012; Miles, 2017). Con- Relations of intimacy among the unac- tact brokered online sometimes stays in the vir- quainted are often (but not always) predicated tual world (McGlotten, 2013; Miles, 2019), on processes of exchange and disclosure akin to particularly in places where local culture makes de-strangering. Knowing someone meaning- meeting in public difficult – such as in parts of fully typically requires a feeling of going the Middle East where men and women cannot beyond small talk and engaging in personal dia- easily mix (Costa and Menin, 2016; Kaya, logue. It often involves developing some back- 2009) or for those with limited physical mobi- ground understanding about another person and lity, where online fora may offer a social lifeline finding points of commonality or intrigue. Inti- (Dobransky and Hargittai, 2006). Digital tech- macy is never a given, but rather a quality nology can not only extend possibilities for marked by contingency. It emerges as people stranger intimacy beyond the immediately prox- reciprocate in sharing spaces, stories, feelings imate, it can also intensify these encounters by and emotions (Germann Molz, 2014; Shah, transmitting audio, images or video that make 2011). When strangers without existing social them feel more proximate (Cockayne et al., ties are brought together outside of conventional 2017). settings or institutions, encounters are often Face-to-face stranger encounters are often marked with a sense of freedom and openness marked with a particular intensity, as demon- (Bialski, 2011, 2012; Walsh, 2007). Being strated empirically by scholars such as Bialski in proximate space relatively free from public (2012), Brown (2012), Laurier and Philo scrutiny can facilitate intense kinds of (2006), Valentine (2008), Watson (2006) and engagements, passions and forthright dialogue Wilson (2011). Expectations of intimacy can (Fullagar et al., 2012; Bialski, 2012). Such bring heightened emotions, especially when a engagements may encourage a willingness to planned meeting takes place at home, as inter- self-disclose, actively listen and forge connec- actions can be awkward, involve tension, tion (Germann Molz, 2012). As Bialski notes, unease or embarrassment (Bialski, 2018; Miles, ‘people become closer, faster, and often for a 2019; Møller and Petersen, 2017; Race, 2015). very short period of time’ (2012: 66). Thus, There are more serious concerns too: one may while stranger intimacies are not uncommon, be opening themselves up to potential physical the affective and emotional intensity they carry harm, property damage, fraud or theft. Letting can be extraordinary. It is the generative yet the stranger in is a highly conditional form of conditional nature of stranger intimacy that per- encounter, involving impulse decisions and haps most renders it a domain of social relation more deliberate judgements as to who or what in need of greater research. As Iveson has types of strangers are seen as desirable and trust- argued: ‘[R]ather than demanding that urban worthy. It is evident that many digital applica- inhabitants be open to encounters with tions and platforms are effective in developing “strangers” we need to learn more about the new forms of social capital within communities circumstances in which particular people have of users. Generalised levels of trust are built taken the risks associated with these stranger Koch and Miles 13 encounters and transformed their cities in the such as friend, guest, host or community mem- process’ (2007: 46). ber. Further, Cockayne et al. (2017) have Commercial transactions often initially demonstrated that digital technology can also underpin encounters involving stranger inti- extend intimacy to the non- or more-than- macy. In such cases, the need or desire for per- human as people knowingly interact, for exam- sonal dialogue and connection may be ple, with robots and algorithms designed to mitigated. Mechanisms of accountability such simulate human dialogue in the pursuit of sex- as identity verification, rating systems and ual pleasure and fantasy. This parallels work credit card details are often sufficient for trust on the role that objects such as the car can play to be established and an exchange to proceed in constituting new forms of relations among (Lynch et al., 2007). Indeed, financially driven unknown others where intimate acts of sharing, meetings between strangers are sometimes not caring and even co-ownership emerge (Dowl- intimate at all: many forms of in-home accom- ing et al., 2018). modation involve little interaction with the host. The broad conceptualisation of stranger inti- The Alfred Club platform promises zero per- macy we have offered marks out a realm of sonal interaction as part of its novelty: subscri- interaction distinct from the kinds of encounters bers pay for services such as house cleaning, underpinning much urban and social theory. buying groceries and running errands while However, it shares a conceptual concern with individual workers are made invisible and inter- geographical questions of bodies, borders and changeable (Anatoska and Vora, 2015). boundaries; with identities, affinities and differ- Reflecting back on Simmel’s observations, it ences; and with the production of opportunities is possible to discern how technological change and inequalities. Examining encounters and today is contributing to new, ambiguous home- interrelated concerns for social connection and city geographies in which strangers being in capital processes in our contemporary urban one’s private space becomes routine, routinely world requires a much more robust consideration calculated and managed through digital technol- of how strangers connect through digital technol- ogy (cf. Maalsen, 2020). The flip side of this is ogy. Stranger intimacy should also be examined that spontaneous public encounters can be dras- with a resolutely geographical imagination, one tically diminished or avoided by technology: that emphasises the importance of understanding staring at one’s phone substitutes for making locally specific contexts and practices. With small talk, search engines and algorithms these points in mind, we would now like to sug- replace the need to ask someone for help, and gest three principles that any research agenda apps can guide pedestrians around areas deemed seeking to explore relations of intimacy, technol- unsafe or undesirable (Leszczynski, 2016). ogy and encounter should consider. Thinking more widely, digitally mediated forms of stranger intimacy or avoidance can be 1 Research into stranger intimacies should situated within a wider process of boundary- blurring in our contemporary moment taking be avowedly open-ended and attuned to the place between conventional relations of pub- materialities of practice lic/private (Koch, 2020; Qian, 2018), and by This is perhaps a truism for any form of social association between relations such as formal/ research. However, new technologies often gen- informal work (Glucksmann, 2011; Wheeler erate a discourse that oscillates between the cel- and Glucksmann, 2014), between producers/ ebration of possibility and laments for consumers (Bruns, 2010; Ritzler and Jurgen- traditional ways of living being lost. Likewise, son, 2010) and in terms of social categories new social and economic logics are treated 14 Progress in Human Geography XX(X) primarily with scepticism by critical scholars account for privacy protections, they could also seeking to counter the unbridled enthusiasm of play a greater role in protecting the public from entrepreneurs and early adopters. We argue that harm on social issues like racism and body technologies which facilitate stranger intimacy shaming. The wider point is that attention to should not be simplistically understood as erod- practice in this emerging body of research ing or enhancing public life, but rather as tools demonstrates how engaging with technological that help encounters and exchanges happen. change in an open-ended way brings forth Focusing on questions of practice and conse- details and insights often obscured by polarised quence – what new technologies or new ways of discourse. living do and how they are done – should be the foremost focus of inquiry (cf. Koch, 2015; Val- 2 Social and spatial differences in how verde, 2003). Attending in an open-ended way individuals and groups engage in stranger to the socio-materialities of practice can yield surprising and important findings about the way intimacy need to be taken as empirical in which technologies create new opportunities questions rather than assumed and generate new problems. For example, sex As the ongoing ‘digital turn’ in geography (Ash and dating apps are frequently vilified in main- et al., 2018) brings greater critical attention to stream media for promoting a promiscuous the impacts of digital technology, a key empha- ‘hook-up’ culture among gay men, increasing sis has been to understand how ‘digital divides’ unsafe sex practices and negatively impacting relate to existing socio-economic and spatial queer physical spaces. However, empirical inequalities (Friemel, 2016; Gonzales, 2016; research has demonstrated a more ambivalent Ragnedda and Muschert, 2013; Van Deursen landscape. Miles (2017) has found that apps fre- and Van Dijck, 2011, 2019). This of course pro- quently help men better understand their sexu- vides one starting point for research into tech- ality by enabling them to have discussions with nologies of stranger intimacy. Hierarchies of peers online; meanwhile, growing research gender, sexuality, ethnicity and physical demonstrates the potential of apps in amplifying appearance permeate dating app platforms health promotion messaging and STI testing and re-inscribe biopolitical inequities, as (Kesten et al., 2019; Mowlabocus et al., 2016; Grindr users can testify having witnessed the Rosengren et al., 2016). At the same time, pernicious refrain ‘no fats, no femmes, no Miles’ (2017, 2019) work shows that the way Asians’ (Miller, 2015; Ruez, 2016; Shield, men seeking men use these apps sometimes fig- 2018). Research into Airbnb in the US has ures the technologies in question as sources of revealed race-based discrimination, with one anxiety, shame and time-wasting, and Chan study revealing that inquirers with African- (2018) finds that the ‘networked intimacy’ pro- American sounding names were 16 per cent less mulgated by location-based media provokes likely to be approved (Edelman et al., 2017; see discomfort among gay men deeply involved in also Griswold, 2018). Sharing economy plat- the platforms’ consumption practices. A key forms are generally targeted at urban, middle- message emerging from both studies is that class professionals. As with sex and dating apps, many users could benefit from more compre- the necessity to fit or perform a certain kind of hensive induction, education and dialogue in identity means that those who have certain com- regard to using sex and dating apps so that petencies – those who can curate attractive pro- encounters and interactions are more likely to files, furnish their home desirably, or are able to be positive ones. Further, while app and plat- fluently converse in the local language – are form developers are regularly challenged to inherently privileged. Conversely, those who Koch and Miles 15 cohabit with others, those outside of city cen- ‘ethnographies of encounter’ (Faier and Rofel, tres, and those with limited access to mobile 2014) in anthropology, scholars might also digital technology or internet data are largely explore how members from different cultural outside of the purview of the imagined app user. backgrounds or with unequal stakes in the rela- While a key promise of the digital is that it can tionships negotiate stranger intimacies (see also enable people to overcome barriers of place, Beban and Schoenberger, 2019). In contexts enabling meaningful relationships to be formed where platforms are proliferating, smartphone across time and space, the actual practices of ownership is dramatically rising and internet data using any technology cannot be performed out- is becoming much more available and affordable, side of specific cultural contexts and place- it remains to be seen how hierarchies of oppor- based affordances. tunity and privilege are reinforced or However, it should not be assumed that those reconfigured. in particular social groups or geographical loca- tions are not engaging in new kinds of digitally mediated practices that enable them to forge 3 New technologies interact dynamically connections, establish trust and develop capital. Those marginalised from more conventional with prevailing social and economic logics. social and economic networks often have much Geographers will need to engage to gain from finding new ways to connect. Com- ethnographically and beyond to understand pelling research on these points has been devel- ongoing changes in stranger intimacy oped by Gillespie et al. (2018) who examine and their collective effects smartphone use among Syrian refugees; Graham et al. (2017) who investigate the Our perspective is undoubtedly partial, but liv- experience of workers in gig economies across ing in London we personally inhabit a world in sub-Saharan Africa and South-east Asia; and which our friends, neighbours and colleagues Madianou and Miller’s (2011) research on have grown comfortable with stranger intima- transnational domestic service workers using cies that would have seemed unusual in the social media to build and maintain intimate recent past. App-based dating is the norm, the relations. One important strand of inquiry would short-term letting of one’s home is common, be to assess different usage rates of digital and almost no one thinks twice about getting platforms by different demographic groups, into a stranger’s car hailed via smartphone. split for example by ethnicity, age, gender or Digital technology has helped to mitigate risks, socio-economic class. One’s social position but it has also changed the way people think and may affect not only their access to networks behave. The sociality of sex and dating has and resources, but also the circumstances in shifted such that many people are reluctant to which they are willing to trust unknown others. approach someone in public for fear of rejection Here, Ettlinger’s (2003) arguments for de- or embarrassment, yet are quite comfortable homogenising relations of trust provide a useful having intimate conversations online, discuss- starting point for untangling the different ration- ing sexual preferences, sharing private photos alities and affective forces that shape interac- and arranging at-home meetings. Logics of tions not only among different spheres of property and tenure are changing too. Digital personal and public life, but also among indi- platforms help many Londoners cope with costs viduals and groups of different social position, of living, but they also promote new kinds of and among communities of trust that can be entrepreneurialism and rent-seeking. A spare local or non-localised. Building on room, a holiday away from the city, or a long 16 Progress in Human Geography XX(X) solo car ride increasingly becomes seen as an between digital platforms such as Airbnb and opportunity for making money. patterns of gentrification (cf. Wachsmuth and To understand the cultural and socio- Weisler, 2018)? How do automobile and ride- economic changes being brought about by new sharing apps impact public transportation use forms of stranger intimacy, ethnographic (Shaheen and Cohen, 2018) and car ownership insights are essential. They reveal the kinds of (Kamargianni et al., 2018)? Bringing qualitative opportunities and rewards being pursued, as understandings into engagement with more well as the values and judgements underpinning quantitative and GIS-based approaches can make how boundaries are drawn and negotiated. Eth- use of available data to help to visualise and more nography also helps get at practical knowledge systematically analyse patterns of app and plat- involved in using particular apps and platforms, form use. Such insights can also help to inform and it is useful for examining how practices policy debates about interventions that can effec- evolve as technology develops alongside chang- tively mitigate against collective harms. ing norms and conventions. Yet doing ethnogra- phy on digitally mediated encounters can be difficult, as much of the interaction takes place V Conclusion on screens and/or in relative privacy. Emerging Questions of how unknown others encounter conversations about ‘digital ethnography’ and relate to one another have long been a cen- (Duggan, 2017; Hjorth et al., 2017) offer some tral concern in social and urban theory. Pro- productive pathways into such terrain, but it is cesses of urbanisation and globalisation also important to emphasise that ‘the digital’ accelerated forms of mobility and communica- should not be consigned to an isolated field of tion, and the production of novel spaces for practice, nor to a distinct disciplinary subfield work, leisure, consumption and transport (Ash et al., 2018). It will also be crucial that have all provided fertile ground for theorising geographers examine stranger intimacies and empirically examining interactions beyond their own cultural contexts. This will among strangers. Yet the impacts that digital involve significant challenges in terms of nego- technologies are having on patterns of sociality tiating access, working ethically, and navigating and exchange have yet to be adequately incor- insider/outsider positionalities (cf. Campbell porated into geographical scholarship, particu- et al., 2006; Mohammad, 2001) to learn about larly in research focused specifically on qualitative similarities and differences in how encounter. This is striking given that Simmel’s encounters are brokered, and to what ends. foundational work on encounter compellingly However, to understand broader collective emphasised how earlier forms of technology – effects of stranger intimacies, particularly at the industrial production, railway transportation urban scale, there is also a pressing need to and timekeeping – profoundly impacted the incorporate forms of analysis that go beyond interpersonal dynamics and subjective experi- ethnographic understanding. Returning back to ences of life among strangers. Likewise, the our home city of London, for example, we might highly influential work on stranger relations and begin to ask about the effects that stranger inti- public culture by scholars like Habermas and macies are having on the spaces where people Sennett was grounded in registering the effects conventionally meet. What is the relation of socio-technological change. Today, smart- between digitally mediated sociality and the phones and tablets, digital platforms and soft- decline in nightlife venues generally, and ware applications, GPS and location-based LGBTQþ spaces specifically (Campkin and media are reshaping how stranger encounters Marshall, 2018)? What is the correlation happen, as the digital renders ambiguous many Koch and Miles 17 distinctions between proximity and distance, family, friends and colleagues and has sup- connection and disconnection, human and ported people in connecting locally and globally non-human (Richardson, 2016). These technol- with unknown others for acts of care, solidarity, ogies and the new social and economic logics in conversation, entertainment and intimacy. At which they are entwined should be part and the same time, the pandemic has exposed dif- parcel of any research into how people live and ferences and exacerbated precisely the kinds of relate today. inequalities this paper has sought to foreground. Focusing on intimate forms of stranger Beyond the most urgent moments of crisis, the encounter, this paper has outlined various ways pandemic will undoubtedly result in enduring in which digital technology helps to bring changes to the behavioural, biopolitical and unknown others together for shared pleasures affective forces through which strangers are and economic and cultural pursuits. It has out- judged and encounter is negotiated. lined how digitally mediated practices including Our hope in outlining an agenda for further searching, scoping, screening and selecting research on stranger intimacies is threefold. We facilitate meetings among individuals in ways believe firstly that a nuanced understanding of that reconfigure both space and time. It has also how digital technology connects people or holds detailed how trust and a sense of accountability them apart can contribute to the development of are established, through formal means such as better platforms, apps and devices. Developers identity checks and credit card verification and and designers should be continuously chal- through interpersonal dialogue, that help to lenged to innovate, not only for the sake of establish shared understandings and points of novelty or profit, but also for equity and connection. The shift from stranger encounters empowerment. Second, where this fails or when in contemporary cities being as much about collective harms of new digitally mediated choice as they are chance generates several crit- practices are identified, practical insights gar- ical considerations. New forms of exclusive- nered through sustained, critical research help ness, selectivity and social distancing brought to inform ideas and decision-making about into being by these technologies and practices interventions, be they governmental, corporate need to be better understood. So too do the ways or user-generated (Arora and Scheiber, 2017). in which they facilitate and enable people to Third and finally, we believe that research can engage in relations of knowing, caring, help individuals and groups become more com- befriending and loving, particularly outside of petent users of new technologies, enabling them conventional institutions and networks of soci- to form meaningful and mutually beneficial ality. As new forms of segregation and social connections with others. In these ways, the distancing are continuously pioneered (Atkin- hopeful possibilities of urban life as a gathering son, 2016; Chronopoulos, 2012; Minton, of strangers might be realised. 2012), understanding the ways in which people come together in mutually beneficial ways is a Declaration of conflicting interests matter of critical importance. The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of inter- The COVID-19 pandemic has brought est with respect to the research, authorship, and/or extraordinary disruption and fraught intensity publication of this article. to many interpersonal encounters. Physical proximity is potentially life-threatening and Funding unprecedented forms of social distancing have The author(s) received no financial support for the come into being. Digital technology has proven research, authorship, and/or publication of this essential to how people stay in touch with article. 18 Progress in Human Geography XX(X)

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