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Structural Violence in a Tourist ‘Paradise’

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Abstract

East Africa presents a vivid example of globalization and the violence it engenders both structurally and physically. Tourism has expanded and dominated the coastal area of first Kenya and later Tanzania and linked to it, there has been an expansion of sex work and heroin use. Susan Beckerleg and Gillian Lewando Hundt write about an anthropological study of the lives of women heroin users as an illustration of the way that economic and social forces impact on their health and social welfare. Violence is an everyday feature of their lives as they service the needs of tourists seeking the pleasures of a ‘tourist paradise’.

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Acknowledgements

This paper reports on findings that are part of an Economic and Social Research Council research project, ‘Risking Independence? Swahili Women Heroin Users’ (R000238392). Grace and the other women users are thanked for their time and the trouble taken in recounting their lives.

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Beckerleg, S., Hundt, G. Structural Violence in a Tourist ‘Paradise’. Development 47, 109–114 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100015

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100015

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