| This dissertation focuses on twenty-first century encounters between European female tourists and male Kenyan tourism workers, and the burgeoning phenomenon known as "romance tourism." I argue that romance tourism constitutes a rich modern-day juncture between gender, sexuality, and power, at which individuals from disparate social worlds collide and temporarily transgress racial, class and generational boundaries. Drawing on ethnographic data I gathered in two popular Kenyan coastal tourist spots---on Lamu Island and Malindi town---as well as from post-holiday interviews conducted in Switzerland, my research shows that existing typographies and theories about sex tourism are inadequate for capturing the complex relationships, affective ties, and economic exchanges that characterize Western women's engagements with non-Western men.;The tension between institutionalized power---largely rooted in racial hierarchies, and individual power---which is directly contingent upon gender, nationality and socioeconomic status, reveals the contradictions and complex pressures behind interpersonal relationships between Western women and Kenyan men who work in coastal tourism destinations, such as Lamu and Malindi. As such, questions of power and social positionality are both fluid and conditional. I argue that the intimate collisions of these two social groups, not only reflect historical hierarchies between Africa and Europe, but are themselves directly influenced by contemporary geo-political policies and macroeconomic processes. Drawing upon the stories and ethnographic profiles of social actors who are continuously negotiating cultural diversity and a range of personal disparities, including those based on economics, age, race and gender, I explore what happens when Western female tourist enter into cross-cultural relationships with Kenyan beach workers. |
