The Economy of Desire: Globalisation, Gender and Sex Tourism in the Caribbean

Abstract

The relatively recent phenomenon of sex tourism in the Caribbean which is attributed to the growth of the global capitalist economy is closely linked to several centuries of racialised and gendered divisions within Caribbean society. Sex tourism or ‘tourism-oriented prostitution’ in the Caribbean is becoming an increasingly important area of research with the growing Caribbean dependence on tourism and tourism-related activities for employment and revenue generation. In this paper, the author seeks to explore the nature of sex work in the Caribbean as a part of the gendered international travel and tourism economy. The global commodity chains (GCC) approach shall be adopted as a tool of analysis to study the complex relationships between leisure and sex through the lens of economic production and social reproduction.

Keywords: race, gender, ethnicity, sex tourism, Caribbean