ABSTRACT

This chapter explores some of the connections between the tourist spaces of the Sinai and the relationships that Western women and local men that take place there. According to Edensor, formal or enclavic' tourist space is organised, requires large amounts of capital investment, and is constructed to international tourist standards. The necessary capital comes from international business, aid agencies and the state and the focus is on creating, and maintaining Western-style products with Western levels of service. Heterogeneous tourist spaces are overlapping and multi functional and usually located within market or bazaar areas where boundaries between public and private are blurred. Edensor's enclaves are presented as clearly bounded with access denied to locals who may spend their work-time here, but rarely their leisure time'. Tourist space plays a crucial role in the negotiations of these tensions and contradictions around the power of gender, race and modernity.