The internet and the Euro-Brazilian transnationalization of intimacy in a tourist destination

Abstract

With the progressive globalization of the dating industry and of marriage markets, the article discusses the role of the internet in the constitution of intimate transnational relations between European men and Brazilian women who meet through tourist encounters in the beach neighbourhood of Ponta Negra (Natal-RN, Northeast of Brazil). The objectives of the analysis are to understand how the identity of this tourist destination is projected online, how it promotes masculine mobilities, and how cyberspace mediates Euro-Brazilian intimacy relations and provides a framework for bonds to develop and sometimes evolve towards conjugality. The empirical data derives from a transatlantic ethnography in which digital space was also considered a research site.