Mobile safety apps: a material feminist orientation to precarious mobilities

Abstract

The pervasiveness of sexual violence in the United States was brought to public attention by the #MeToo movement, and in the years since there has been renewed attention to existing resources for survivors of sexual violence, like crisis hotlines and websites, as well as inspiring new initiatives that address problems of sexual violence inscribed within systems of power. Many women have also taken matters into their own hands by downloading one of the many mobile smartphone apps designed to promote women’s safety and/or document instances of sexual violence. In this article, the authors apply critical mobilities studies with a material feminist approach to understand the complex relations that have and continue to coproduce women’s mobilities through the use of mobile safety apps by identifying and analyzing the features of popular mobile safety apps alongside existing literature. Such an account rejects utopian technocratic solutions to complex systemic issues; it also identifies areas for productive intervention in these users’ mobilities.