Constructing whiteness and locating power in East Africa : desirability and status of 'others' with access

"A war for a foreign woman" Gender, Power and Economic Tension in Negril

“…Much of the research on FST is either missing or lacking a discussion around positionality of the researcher in the field, especially when the majority of researchers on the topic of FST (and the researchers who have inspired my interest in this subject) hold similar, if not the same powers of economic position, nationality, and citizenship, as the female tourists they are studying. Their own visibility as "foreign women with access" (Gross 2013) means that they will be approached, perceived, and interacted with in the same sense that other foreign tourist women would be. In other words, their status as 'researcher' does not exempt them from being pursued and considered as an opportunity by local men, nor does it remove their implicitness in the various power relations that are enacted by transnational, cross-cultural, and interracial interactions in tourist towns.…”

“…While Sanchez Taylor argues that female tourists choose to ignore or overlook an exchange, there is always some sort of exchange taking place whether it is tangible, such as money, gifts, food etc., or intangible, such as status, or the power, access, and opportunity that follows the association with "whiteness" (Phillips 2008, Sanchez Taylor 2001, Gross 2013. While these discussions are important in framing the field of FST, they do not address the fact that scholarship on MST reveals that there are men who also travel specifically to engage in sexual/economic exchange, men also travel for love, intimacy, sex and romance (Sanchez Taylor 2001, Oppermann 1999.…”

“…Part of their desire for foreign women is the possibility that they can pursue a relationship where they are not expected to contribute financially and may even gain money or status. As noted earlier, in the contexts of transnational relationships between white, Western women and local Kenyan and Tanzanian men, Gross's (2013) research revealed that white women were understood as "Others" with access to finances and travel to or residence in Western countries by Kenyan and Tanzanian men (2). In her work she investigated the position of foreign woman as "Other," and as one invested with power in contrast to the traditional understandings of "difference within processes of racialization as marginalization or subordination" (3).…”