Race and desire in the porno-tropics: Ethnographic perspectives from the post-colony

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	Race and desire in the porno-tropics: Ethnographic perspectives from the post-colony
Author:	Hendriks, Thomas
Year:	2014
Periodical:	Sexualities (ISSN 1363-4607)
Volume:	17
Issue:	1-2
Pages:	213-229
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Congo (Democratic Republic of)
Subjects:	sexuality race relations masculinity pornography
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460713511100
Abstract:	In this article I explore the limits of Anne McClintock's conceptualization of the 'porno-tropics' as a concept to understand the everyday lives of an isolated group of European expatriates working for a logging company in the Congolese rainforest. Based on long-term ethnographic research, I give a reading of two sets of images I encountered during my fieldwork – a soft-erotic calendar and a hardcore porn site – to come to a better understanding of the actual discourses and practices of interracial sex along the racial divide. To get a grip on the economy of desire at my fieldwork site, I focus on two figures who are largely overlooked by McClintock's analysis: the continuing influence of the white woman as an 'absent presence' in the post-colony and the ambiguous presence of the black man as both an emasculating body and a resource in the construction of 'white' masculinities.