Technocultures of Consent: Understandings and Practices of Consent Among U.S. Arab/SWANA Women and Non-Binary People Who Use Dating Apps

Identity facets such as gender, sexuality, and race shape consent processes, including in dating. Increasingly, dating apps play important roles in consent exchange processes. Examining consent in gendered and racialized communities, as mediated by dating apps, is an overlooked yet important space for illuminating the interplay between identity, technology, and consent. We draw from a guided reflective writing questionnaire (N=20) and semi-structured interviews (N=13) with self-identified second- and subsequent Arab and Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) diaspora generations in the U.S. We investigate participants' online dating experiences with attention to consent-related values, behaviors, and experiences. Findings highlight the U.S. Arab/SWANA diaspora's technocultures of consent - a conceptual framework we use to describe the understandings and practices of consent that are influenced, co-produced, or expressed by the interaction between technology and people. We demonstrate how the technocultures of consent conceptual framework reveals connections between individuals' identities and social positions, consent-related beliefs and behaviors and technology design, norms, and expectations. We also introduce the concepts of networked consent and consent concept alignment tests, and offer design considerations to promote consent for all.