Transnational Intimacies: Examples from Cambodia

Abstract

In uneven transnational spaces, intimacy is sometimes utilised in unique ways. The goal of this chapter is to provide two distinct examples of the way intimacy is employed as a tool in Cambodia. The first example illuminates how intimacy is made use of in the context of ‘professional girlfriends’ (PGs) and their relationships with foreign men. ‘Professional girlfriends’ is a term used to describe a multifarious group of young women in Cambodia who are employed in bars and actively seek out relationships with ‘western boyfriends’1 from whom they hope to benefit both materially and emotionally. The young women are generally stereotyped by outside observers, and in journalistic and academic depictions, as indirect ‘sex workers’. This is despite the fact that they do not identify as such, nor do they view their quest for ‘western boyfriends’ as work. Data collected over eight years of ethnographic research has led me to develop a more nuanced vocabulary with which to engage in discourse about this population of entrepreneurial women.