Repeating Islands

Amalia Cabezas’s Economies of Desire: Sex and Tourism in Cuba and the Dominican Republic (2009), is based on ten years of research and claims to be the first ethnographic study to examine the erotic underpinnings of transnational tourism.

The review states that “it offers startling insights into the commingling of sex, intimacy, and market forces in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, two nations where tourism has had widespread effects. In her multi-layered analyses, Amalia Cabezas reconceptualizes our understandings of informal economies (particularly ‘affective economies’), ‘sex workers,’ and ‘sexual tourism,’ and she helps us appreciate how money, sex and love are intertwined within the structure of globalizing capitalism.” Patricia Zavella, professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California-Santa Cruz says that “Economies of Desire is very well written and compelling, drawing us into two historical contexts and illustrating women’s agency as they negotiate the economic, political, and social constraints. Cabezas’ many years of field research provide nuance to her analysis, and her critique of the feminist discourse about human rights is completely on target.”

Amalia Cabezas is assistant professor of Women’s Studies at the University of California-Riverside. Her research interests include sex tourism, women’s human rights, health, women’s labor, and the politics of gender. She is also co-editor of The Wages of Empire: Neoliberal Policies, Repression and Women’s Poverty (with Ellen Reese and Marguertite Waller).

For review and purchasing information, see http://www.amazon.com/Economies-Desire-Tourism-Dominican-Republic/dp/1592137504