Participant-Led Photographs and Repositioning el Mujeriego or “the Hustler” in Costa Rica’s Caribbean Littoral

Abstract

By using participant-led photography, we examine the complexity in which Black and mixed-race masculinities are imagined and negotiated vis-à-vis interactions and intimate relations with foreign women, in the context of global tourism and transnational intimacies in the South Caribbean littoral of Costa Rica. Photographs were used to reposition local young men, who are often racialized in the tourist imagery, as “takers” of images of their daily lives. We argue that their photographs serve to situate and critically to challenge some of the most common local tourist narratives that portray local men as mujeriegos or “hustlers” who “sponge” off tourist women.