Full Description
This book takes an intimate look at the lives of British migrants in Sitges, an affluent coastal tourist town in Northern Spain and investigates ideas of gender, sexuality, and national identity as they are brought to life through the voices of British lifestyle migrants.
Situating Sitges as a specifically affluent and "middle-class" location representing a particular form of "lifestyle migration," this rich and detailed study explores how the experiences of British migrants re-inscribe culturally specific understandings of the relationship between space, place, culture and identity. What ultimately emerges is an account of the complex structural constraints of identity, as British migrants find themselves stuck within the stereotype of badly-behaved Brits Abroad and entangled in highly conservative conceptualisations of gender and sexuality, that leave them unable to live the kind of cosmopolitan lifestyles that they so purposefully sought.
This is a fascinating study suitable for researchers in gender and sexuality studies, tourism, sociology, and anthropology.
Contents
Introduction; Chapter One Setting the Scene - Sitges and Cosmopolitanism; Chapter Two A history of tourism in Britain and Spain; Chapter Three Living Between Expectation and Reality; Chapter Four Sitges and Lifestyle Migration; Chapter Five Authenticity and Identity - becoming who you are in Sitges; Chapter Six Escaping from Ties that Bind and Other Contradictions; Chapter Seven Political Theories of Recognition; Chapter Eight The Revaluation of Homosexuality and the Cross-Gendered Paradigm; Chapter Nine The Heterosexual Matrix; Chapter Ten Women, Lesbians, and Authenticity - an extended interview; Chapter Eleven 'Heterolesbianism' and Pornography; Chapter Twelve Sitges Pride; a Case Study; Chapter Thirteen Heterolesbianism as Hypersexualisation; Conclusion;
