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

Abstract

This thesis investigates intimate relationships between foreign women and Jamaican men in Negril. Some female sex tourism scholars recognize foreign women as exerting their racial and economic power over local men in the destination towns they visit, whereas other scholars suggest that local men exert their gender power over foreign women in their relationships. Upon closer examination of the negotiations of power that take place within relationships between foreign women and Jamaican men in Negril, it became clear that the power that operates within the relationships is not straightforward. Both foreign women and Jamaican men exercise different forms of power in order to get what they desire from their relationships. This complicates common misconceptions of foreign women as either wealthy and all powerful or as naive victims of sexually aggressive Jamaican men, and calls for a more nuanced reading of the negotiations of power in the local contexts of Negril.