From Europe with passion: frameworks of the touristic male desire of Ponta Negra, in the North-East of Brazil

Abstract

Based upon multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, this article debates the constitution of a particular type of transatlantic touristic flows from the European continent to the cosmopolitan beach neighbourhood of Ponta Negra, in Natal, capital city of the state of Rio Grande do Norte in the North-East of Brazil. These flows are predominantly male and are quite evidently permeated by issues related to passion, personal relations and sexual intimacy. The main objective of the analysis is to attempt to map and understand the most influential social and cultural frameworks (biographical paths of intimacy, gender relationships, subjectivities, the production and circulation of representations of Brazil, homosociabilities) in the definition and substantiation of the foreign male tourist's desire to visit Ponta Negra. It thus constitutes an attempt to socially and culturally locate the option of travelling to this leisure destination, on the part of both first-time visitors and the numerous individuals who repeatedly visit Ponta Negra over the years.

Keywords:

• tourism
• European men
• sociocultural frameworks
• transnational desires
• Ponta Negra
• Brazil

ORCID

Octávio Sacramento http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8533-3653

Notes

1 The fieldwork was based on a qualitative methodological approach, with ethnography being the guiding procedure for data collection (through participant observation and semi-oriented interviews), although I have also undertaken documental research and applied a short questionnaire to characterize European tourists to the area. First, I stayed six months in Ponta Negra, between November 2009 and May 2010, this constituting the initial ethnographic context and principal point of reference. In addition, I visited other sites – geographical (the North of Italy and the Netherlands) and digital (e.g. Facebook and YouTube) – involved in the dense network of flows associated with the connections of intimacy that had begun in Brazil, some of which had been maintained over time at distance in several relational formats. Thus, by adopting a ‘multi-sited ethnography’ (Marcus, 1995), I was able to keep contact with some of my main informants during their trips to and stays in locations on both sides of the Atlantic and, therefore, gain a more complete understanding of the transnational dimension of what might be called ‘intimacy-scapes’ in which they are the main characters. The fact of being a male researcher facilitated a particularly empathetic relationship with the European men. Furthermore, my Portuguese nationality and the sharing of a common language helped in the process of developing closer contact with the Brazilian women involved. Additionally, these factors also played a positive role in establishing a rapport with the majority of tourists, due to our proximity in terms of geography, culture and language.

2 It is pertinent to recall here Enloe's claim (cited in Carter & Clift, 2000, p. 9) that historically the tourist trip is a profoundly gendered (i.e. male) experience.

3 Compared to the South of Italy, the percentage of bachelors in the North is higher, on average they marry later, the nuptiality quotient is weaker (2.8‰ in the Northwest and 2.9‰ in the Northeast, both lower than the national average of 3.2‰, and even lower than the 3.8‰ found in the South of the country) (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica – Itália [ISTAT], 2013) and the rate of divorce is higher (ISTAT, 2012).

4 One can infer from the educational and employment data that these visitors to Ponta Negra are not from the wealthiest classes, which goes in line with the more or less explicit statements of Piscitelli (2004b) on Fortaleza (Brazil), Brennan (2004a) on Sosúa (Dominican Republic), Taylor (2000) on the Caribbean region, or Cohen (1982, 2003) and Seabrook (1996) on locations in Thailand. This fact is a symptom of a rising democratization of travelling and the wider societal diffusion of what was hitherto an elite culture of tourism consumption (Hall, 2015; Urry, 1996).

5 Generally, language differences did not constitute a problem when interviewing tourists. For many, as a result of their repeat visits to Brazil, they were already quite comfortable with the Portuguese language. In the case of Italian, the relative proximity between the two languages proved to be a facilitating factor for communication and for the subsequent transcription of interviews.

6 This shift, according to Kaufmann (2000), is towards a more self-affirming focus on themselves, on the creation of a ‘solo lifestyle’ detached from traditional family canons, and involves a perpetual search for a ‘fairytale prince’.

7 Moreover, the references to Briatore and to Totti show that ‘[ … ] hegemony works in part through the production of exemplars of masculinity (e.g., professional sports stars), symbols that have authority despite the fact that most men and boys do not fully live up to them’ (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005: 846). In Italy, ‘hegemonic masculinity’ is rooted, in particular, in multiple cultural expressions from antiquity to the present, relating to collective representations of the country's identity, and in the politico-ideological construction of nationality and of what it means to be Italian (Bellassai, 2008; Cecla, 2010; Reich, 2004).

8 A woman who meets the criteria of beauty and sensuality most appreciated and desired by the public. Though the origins of the metaphorical use of the word velina (literally ‘tissue paper’) were in the fascist period – when journalists used it to refer to news content disseminated by the regime aiming strategically to produce a certain version of the facts – by the end of the 1980s, it had come to mean a TV showgirl, modelled on the young women in Channel 5's popular satire show Striscia la Notizia, broadcast since 1988.

9 According to these men's viewpoints, Brazilian women prefer more patriarchal settings, embodying what Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) termed an ‘emphasized femininity’. However, it was not only women who have supposedly changed. They and the coordinates of gender relationships also changed. Tourist travel, as is the case with many other forms of mobility, modifies the ways in which these men perceive, present and fulfil their gender identity (Cresswell & Uteng, 2008).

10 In Italy, in the rest of Europe and in developed countries as a whole, formal marriage has been losing some of its hegemony as a conjugal model, with romantic unions becoming progressively deinstitutionalized and more flexible (Aboim, 2004; Hull, Meier, & Ortyl, 2010; Rosina & Fraboni, 2004).

11 The retelling is almost always done in an affectionate way, either more enthusiastically or in a more nostalgic manner. The story is, in some cases, embellished by showing photos and short videos, often made available publicly through YouTube and/or other online social networks. Souvenirs can also be an important trigger for the recounting of tourist experiences, as Stewart (cited in Löfgren, 2004, p. 100) has highlighted. I witnessed conversations that started simply due to the sound of forró music from the Brazilian North-East, or to the sight of a key-fob or of yellow-and-green scarves on a car's front seats, loudly proclaiming their Brazilian origins.

12 ‘Armchair tourism’ (Baxter & Pieszek, 2011) is a common term for such practices.

13 Easily accessed internationally and viewed by tens of thousands of people, particularly in European countries where the greatest touristic flows originate.

Additional information

Funding

This field research was supported by a Ph.D. grant of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology [FCT – SFRH/BD/60862/2009] and the writing process of this article by the Centre for Transdisciplinary Development Studies of the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro [centre financed by FCT – PEst-OE/SADG/UI4011/2014].