{"title":"爱的倦怠:喀麦隆雅温得的年轻女性、手机和延迟结婚","authors":"Ewa Majczak","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14118","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines how work towards the promise of love marriage comes to be exhausted. It focuses on young urban women living in Yaoundé, Cameroon, trying to ‘catch’ a husband using digital technologies in which photographs figure prominently. Focusing on the visual production of dating profiles, I show how mobile phones place young women at the centre of their own husband-catching pursuits. Through digital actions, these young women produce the promise of love marriage, but at the same time their actions require increased volumes of emotional work. As phones constantly compel young women to intensify their husband-catching efforts and amplify the promise of love marriage, they rarely bring the desired results. Thus, young women, burdened by the emotional work necessary to sustain this promise, experience a form of love burnout, suspend their actions, and delay marriage. In highlighting the emotional laboriousness of intimate relations in technologically mediated worlds, this article draws out the limitations of the way in which the promise of love marriage is circulated and points to how neoliberal economies of affect may be temporarily suspended.</p>","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"30 4","pages":"953-972"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-9655.14118","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Love burnout: young women, mobile phones, and delayed marriage in Yaoundé, Cameroon\",\"authors\":\"Ewa Majczak\",\"doi\":\"10.1111/1467-9655.14118\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p>This article examines how work towards the promise of love marriage comes to be exhausted. It focuses on young urban women living in Yaoundé, Cameroon, trying to ‘catch’ a husband using digital technologies in which photographs figure prominently. Focusing on the visual production of dating profiles, I show how mobile phones place young women at the centre of their own husband-catching pursuits. Through digital actions, these young women produce the promise of love marriage, but at the same time their actions require increased volumes of emotional work. As phones constantly compel young women to intensify their husband-catching efforts and amplify the promise of love marriage, they rarely bring the desired results. Thus, young women, burdened by the emotional work necessary to sustain this promise, experience a form of love burnout, suspend their actions, and delay marriage. In highlighting the emotional laboriousness of intimate relations in technologically mediated worlds, this article draws out the limitations of the way in which the promise of love marriage is circulated and points to how neoliberal economies of affect may be temporarily suspended.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":47904,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute\",\"volume\":\"30 4\",\"pages\":\"953-972\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.1000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-04-21\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-9655.14118\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"90\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.14118\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"社会学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"ANTHROPOLOGY\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.14118","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
Love burnout: young women, mobile phones, and delayed marriage in Yaoundé, Cameroon
This article examines how work towards the promise of love marriage comes to be exhausted. It focuses on young urban women living in Yaoundé, Cameroon, trying to ‘catch’ a husband using digital technologies in which photographs figure prominently. Focusing on the visual production of dating profiles, I show how mobile phones place young women at the centre of their own husband-catching pursuits. Through digital actions, these young women produce the promise of love marriage, but at the same time their actions require increased volumes of emotional work. As phones constantly compel young women to intensify their husband-catching efforts and amplify the promise of love marriage, they rarely bring the desired results. Thus, young women, burdened by the emotional work necessary to sustain this promise, experience a form of love burnout, suspend their actions, and delay marriage. In highlighting the emotional laboriousness of intimate relations in technologically mediated worlds, this article draws out the limitations of the way in which the promise of love marriage is circulated and points to how neoliberal economies of affect may be temporarily suspended.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute is the principal journal of the oldest anthropological organization in the world. It has attracted and inspired some of the world"s greatest thinkers. International in scope, it presents accessible papers aimed at a broad anthropological readership. It is also acclaimed for its extensive book review section, and it publishes a bibliography of books received.