Secrets in the marketplace of intimacy : Heterosexuality and mobile phones in Dar es Salaam

Abstract

Most heterosexual intimacy in Sub-Saharan Africa is transactional, meaning intimacy is exchanged for money. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, I use 59 interviews to examine this transactionality as a “marketplace of intimacy” enabled by mobile phone infrastructure. My framework is practice theory, which sees the “marketplace” is a Bordieuan playing field where actors maneuver to “win” in the game of love, sex, and material well-being. Heterosexual activity in Dar es Salaam is a way for men and women to help each other achieve social respect and a self-image of “normalcy.” By using the phone, men who could not “sexually function” could arrange women to pose as girlfriends and come visit them. Men and women in intimate relationships used mobile phones to navigate the pitfalls of having infidelities discovered, yet secrets were accidentally revealed due to the phone’s technological complexities. The need to maintain trust between partners discouraged them from using the privacy affordances of mobile phones when storing photos, messages, and calls. Mobile phones were also used to create distance through which women tested men for trustworthiness; and it formed a hidden parallel reality through which women could engage in multiple relationships secretly, thereby maintaining relationships with cohabiting men and preventing friends or neighbors from stealing male partners who sent them money via the phone.