‘If you give me time I can love you’: A Pregnant Researcher among Male Beach Workers on Kenya’s Liminal South Coast Beaches

Abstract

In this paper I discuss how while carrying out research among male beach workers in Kenya’s touristic South Coast region – in relation to their quest for livelihoods through sexual-economic relationships with visiting white women – I became a participant in the phenomenon I set out to study. The article’s contribution is twofold. First, I draw on my interactions with some of the men I met on-site, and in particular my encounter with ‘Weston’ – a migrant beach worker, his unexpected behaviour towards me as a pregnant emigrant Kenyan researcher, and the ambiguity and awkwardness of our exchange, to tease out and offer insights into the behaviour, practices, and gender ideologies held by male beach workers within the South Coast beaches that I qualify as liminal. Second, I bring out the emotional discomforts I faced in my interactions with some of the men with regard to flirtation; requests to assume a matchmaker role between them and western women in Europe, as well as the help offered by men whose interests I suspected were motivated by beach worker rivalry, or their wish to establish sexual-economic relationships with me. In doing so, I highlight the usefulness of engaging in reflexive analyses of one’s fieldwork experiences, interactions, and emotions for the generation of knowledge related to one’s research and research environment.

The arrival of white women: Tourism and the reshaping of beach boys’ masculinity in Zanzibar

“…As I have shown elsewhere, intimate encounters between beach boys and female tourists are part of a continuum which includes one-night stand, holiday romance, but also marriage, long-distance conjugality, migration of the Zanzibari man to the West, and sometimes even migration of the Western partner to Zanzibar (Despres, 2017a). Similar to what has been observed in other African tourist destinations, intimate relations between vacationing women and local men in Zanzibar is regularly accompanied by money or gifts given to the men (Chege, 2014; McCombes, 2012; Salomon, 2009). During their romantic affairs with women on holiday, young Zanzibari men generally acquire economic and material goods: a meal at a restaurant, the cover charge for a party, a telephone card, clothing, pack of cigarettes, and even local currency the vacationer leaves her lover upon departing.…”

Movilidades de Alta Montaña. Una etnografía de la temporalidad en la estación de esquí de la Val d’Aran

“…Entre la orientación consumista característica de la movilidad de los turistas y aquella hacia la producción típica de los trabajadores migrantes, emergen categorías intermedias que han intentado captar la heterogénea constelación de movilidades que confluyen en los resorts turísticos y en las que consumo y producción se articulan de forma variable. Estas incluyen distintas tipologías de migrantes regionales o internacionales, como los jóvenes que combinan las actividades agrarias tradicionales con el trabajo en los resorts turísticos (Chege, 2019) o estudiantes que trabajan durante sus vacaciones para ahorrar y mantenerse durante el año o financiar un viaje (Rice, 2010); pasando por viajeros que ocasionalmente trabajan para sostener sus estilos de vida itinerantes; o trabajadores del sector turístico que se desplazan continuamente entre distintas destinaciones (Uriely, 2001). Dentro de estos últimos, también se ha distinguido entre aquellos que buscan un estilo de vida alternativo donde ocio y trabajo se funden, y quienes, en cambio, están motivados por forjar una carrera dentro de este sector (Adler y Adler, 1999;Bianchi, 2000).…”

“…En el binomio ocio-trabajo, las empresas del sector turístico proyectan una imagen de las ocupaciones que busca ser próxima al ocio y al estilo de vida de los clientes, ocultando el carácter precario de las condiciones laborales. Respecto a la precariedad, algunos autores refieren que los jóvenes empleados pueden verse en la necesidad de complementar sus ingresos con actividades paralelas que les aporten mayores ingresos, algunas ilegales, como el tráfico de drogas (Turner, 2019), o el turismo sexual (Chege, 2019).…”