Queer Transnational Space: How dating apps shape romantic connections and intimate cross-border relationships among Haitian queer migrants and nonmigrants

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In the literature on queer/sexual migration, scholars (Luibhéid 2004, 2008; Manalansan 2006; Cantú et al. 2009; Carrillo 2017; Murray 2020; Tamagawa 2020) have shown how sexuality shapes the migration and integration processes of LGBTQ+ migrants from mainly the Global South to the Global North. In doing so, they have demonstrated that sexuality is a dimension of power that shapes not only why and how LGBTQ+ people move across national borders but also how they integrate into their host societies. While this body of scholarship has provided significant insights into how sexuality intersects with migration to shape the living conditions and life outcomes of LGBTQ+ people globally, they often underexamine the role of dating apps, such as Grindr, Tinder, and Facebook dating, among others, in shaping romantic connections and intimate cross-border relationships among queer migrants and nonmigrants. Dr. Carlo Handy Charles argues in his book project that dating apps play a key role in how co-ethnic/co-national queer migrants and nonmigrants develop transnational connections and same-sex intimate relationships, leading them to migrate or temporarily move across their transnational social space, i.e., their home and host countries. In doing so, Charles’ research contributes to the literature on queer/sexual migration and transnationalism by showing how digital intimacy shapes LGBTQ+ people’s migration and integration processes and their mobility across transnational social spaces.  

Bio:

Dr. Carlo Handy Charles (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Windsor and a Visiting Scholar in the Digital Intimacy, Gender, and Sexuality Lab at Concordia University. He is also a former Vanier Scholar, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Scholar, and a Fellow at the Institut Convergences Migrations at the CNRS and Collège de France in Paris. His current book project with the University of Chicago Press examines how socio-economic inequalities, sexuality, and space shape transnational same-sex intimate relationships among Haitian men in Haiti, the United States, Canada, France, Brazil, Chile, and the Dominican Republic. He received a Ph.D. in Sociology at McMaster University and a Ph.D. in Geography at the Université des Antilles in 2023. Prior to joining the University of Windsor, he taught Sociology at McMaster University and French at L'Alliance Française de Toronto and L'Alliance Française de Caracas (Venezuela). Beyond academia, he is an award-winning essayist and the co-author of the critically acclaimed Kap O Mond, a play focusing on Haitian migration in France. He is also a public policy advisor, currently working on the Toronto Francophone Affairs Advisory Committee. His publications have appeared in over two dozen academic journals and news media in Canada and internationally. For more information about him and his research, please visit: www.uwindsor.ca/sociology/CarloCharles