Introduction: Foreign travel, transnational sex, and transformations of heterosexualities

Abstract

Transformation of heterosexuality in the context of transnational mobility has been much neglected in the scholarly literature. In this themed issue we bring together four articles to contribute to the debates about negotiations of heterosexual sexual relations and practices between European and North American women and local men at holiday destinations. The focus is on Euro-North American women's performances of heterosexuality as bound up with gender, race, age, and nationality. Each article uses ethnographic methods to demonstrate how transformation of heterosexuality is spatially and culturally contingent and contested in relation to normative expectations of heterosexual love, sex, and romance regulating women's sexuality both in the women travellers' home countries and in the destination of the encounters. More broadly, articles in this themed issue contribute to the emerging literature aiming to re-think heterosexualities.

Viajes al extranjero, sexo transnacional, y transformaciones de las heterosexualidades

La transformación de la heterosexualidad en el contexto de la movilidad transnacional ha sido muy desatendida en la literatura académica. En este volumen temático publicamos cuatro artículos para contribuir a los debates sobre las negociaciones de las relaciones y prácticas sexuales heterosexuales entre mujeres Europeas y norteamericanas y hombres locales en los destinos vacacionales. Se hace foco sobre la performance de heterosexualidad de las mujeres europeas y norteamericanas como ligada al género, raza, edad y nacionalidad. Cada artículo utiliza métodos etnográficos para demostrar cómo la transformación de la heterosexualidad es espacial y culturalmente contingente y disputada en relación con las expectativas normativas del amor heterosexual, el sexo, y el romance que regula la sexualidad de las mujeres tanto en los países de origen de las mujeres turistas como en los destinos de los encuentros. Más ampliamente, los artículos en este volumen temático son un aporte a la literatura emergente que apunta a repensar las heterosexualidades.

国外旅游、跨国性行为，以及异性恋的转变

跨国能动性脉络中，异性恋的转变，大幅受到学术文献所忽略。在此一主题文集中，我们集合了四篇文章，对于欧洲和北美女性及旅游胜地的本地男性之间，异性恋性关係与实践的协商之辩论做出贡献。本文集的焦点在于，欧洲—北美女性与性别、种族、年龄及国籍密切相关的异性恋展演。每篇文章皆运用民族志方法证明，相较于对异性恋爱情、性与罗曼史的规范性期待——这些期待同时在女性旅游者本国与邂逅地点中管控了女性的性慾——而言，异性恋的转变，在空间及文化上是具有偶然性、且不断竞争的。更广泛而言，本主题文集中的文章，对于旨在重思异性恋此一浮现中的文献做出贡献。

Keywords:

• women's travel
• heterosexualities
• transnational intimacies
• non-normative heterosexualities
• sexual economies

Palabras claves:

• viajes de mujeres
• heterosexualidades
• intimidades transnacionales
• heterosexualidades no normativas
• economías sexuales

关键词::

• 女性旅游
• 异性恋
• 跨国亲密性
• 非常规的异性恋
• 性经济

Acknowledgements

Our warmest thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and generous comments. Thanks also to Pamela Moss for her valuable contributions and to Jenny Lloyd for the proof reading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Frohlick

Susan Frohlick is a cultural anthropologist with a joint appointment in Women's and Gender Studies and Anthropology at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. She is also the Coordinator of Women's and Gender Studies and chairs a research ethics board. Her broad research interests are in the area of mobility, subjectivity, and heterosexualities, and two current projects examine tourism and youth, expatriatism, and sexual and reproductive subjectivities in Costa Rica, as well as African refugee and immigrant youth settlement experiences in Canada, especially in the context of HIV risk and multiculturalism.

Ana Dragojlovic

Ana Dragojlovic is an anthropologist who works in the areas of gender and mobility from the perspective of queer and feminist theory and critical masculinity studies. Her more recent interests are centred around critical approaches to historical trauma and related therapeutic discourse and practice. Her regional specialization reflects her interest in diasporas and empires and includes Indonesia, the Netherlands and Afro-Asian connections (particularly in relation to the Afro-Caribbean).

Adriana Piscitelli

Adriana Piscitelli is a feminist social anthropologist, Professor at the University of Campinas/UNICAMP (São Paulo, Brazil), Brazil National Science Research Council Researcher, Senior Researcher and Associate Coordinator of the UNICAMP's Centre for Gender Studies, PAGU. During the last fourteen years she has been engaged in studies focusing the transnational sex and marriage markets and carried researches on human trafficking.