Call for papers for book:
Sexing Travel: Intimacy and Subjectivity in Women’s International Tourism
Edited by Susan Frohlick and Jessica Jacobs
Abstracts accepted until January 15, 2008
Full chapters due by July 1, 2008
2009 publication target date
We are seeking ethnographically informed papers that focus on the multiple
dimensions of women’s participation in sexual and intimate relationships
with local men or women in international tourist destinations, to be
included in an edited volume on transnational/cultural intimacy and sexual
subjectivity in women’s travel. We are currently looking into various
channels for publication, and are aiming for eight contributors.
Scholarship on ‘ethno-sexual relations’ (Nagel, 2003) between tourists and
locals is growing and reflects, in our view, the expansion of sex tourism in
late capitalism from a predominantly masculine terrain (tied into ideas
around the modern subject) and historical practice to a global phenomenon
that includes the gendered consumption practices of First World women shaped
by some women’s increasing economic power and mobility. Most work to date
draws almost exclusively upon a political-economic framework that refers to
“female sex tourists” or “romance tourists”, whose parameters are defined by
women’s similarity (or difference) to male sex tourists. As well as
sustaining the male subject at the center of the conceptualization of female
sex tourism, we feel these approaches ignore the complex sensorial and
emotional dimensions of women’s inter-racial, transcultural sexual and
intimate relationships with local people in largely Southern and Third World
countries. They also miss the opportunity to comment on the role these
encounters play in new subject formations and transnational relationships.
We encourage papers that open up the current narrow focus of debate and do
not simply reproduce the argument that First World female tourists are
exploiting their white feminine privilege by taking sex from young men on
the beaches of the Gambia (or Barbados, Bali, Indonesia, etc) in exchange
for money, goods or other less tangible benefits. We are particularly
interested in papers with a strong empirical grounding, based on fieldwork
and ethnographic methodology or historical approaches, that consider the
diverse international tourist spaces and multifaceted contexts in which
these relationships occur. We especially welcome papers that, as a
collection, are multi-disciplinary (e.g. anthropology, geography, sociology,
women’s and gender studies, cultural and media studies, tourist studies,
history), examine a range of destinations and landscapes, and deal with a
variety of nationalities and ethnicities. Please send an abstract of between
300 and 500 words before January 15, 2008 to Dr. Susan Frohlick
<[log in to unmask]> and Dr. Jessica Jacobs
<[log in to unmask]>. Full papers of approximately 7, 000 to 8,
000 words will be expected by April 1, 2008.
Dr. Susan Frohlick
Associate Professor, Anthropology
University of Manitoba
435 Fletcher Argue
Winnipeg, MB Canada
(204) 474-7872
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