Now This is What I Paid For!”: African American Tourism in Brazil’s “Black Mecca”

• In Event: "The Ecologies of Black Queer Worldmaking."

Description for Program

This paper discusses how the welding of heritage and LGBT tourism engenders new sex economies and forms of relationality in the African Diaspora. Using the city of Salvador in Brazil as a case study along with the insights of transnational feminists, such as M. Jacqui Alexander, I trace how black brazilian women entrepreneurs in the “AfroTourism” industry are seeking to profit from the “imperial eyes” of an increasing amount of African American tourists to the region.

Author

• Christina Carney