This article examines the trajectory of Brazilian women who work as erotic dancers in New York City's gentlemen's bars. It argues that processes of globalization and transnationalism are related not just with political-economic transformations, but also to significant shifts in the ways people relate to each other, use their bodies, and conceive and realize their desires. Such transformations must also be understood in relation to a colonial and post-colonial regime, in which representations about their bodies gain intelligibility. Most of the women who participated in my research are from the middle-classes, and in terms of race, they self-identify as "morenas". Based on fieldwork conducted between years 2004-2005, I analyze how their social positioning and identity are translated from one context to another, and how new social hierarchies are constructed in a transnational context. Taking as a focus of study Blue Diamond, a bar located in the borough of Queens, this article investigates how these transnational reconfigurations are articulated through particular relationships among dancers and between dancers and clients
Transnationalism; Brazilian Erotic Dancers; Sexuality; Race and Class