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Paper short abstract:

While intimate relations with European women are often seen in West Africa as a means for mobility across state borders and some of European values concerning love are inspiring, others are rejected as some men (and women) postulate polygynous arrangements across state borders.

Paper long abstract:

Sometimes romantic intimacies enable mobility across state borders, as is the case with relationships between African men and European women in West African tourist resorts. Migration to Europe being a common dream, such relationships are generally aspired to. Additionally, intimate relations with European women - regarded as synonyms of "true love", faithfullness and non-materialistic attitudes (and associated with "being modern") - for many young men represent an ideal. On entering such a relationship, however, men have to to deal with - obey, challenge or negotiate - the different cultural norms, legislation and religious law regulating intimate relationships in European and African states. Some men postulate retaining their rights to polygamy as immigrants in Europe, proposing its "transcontinental" version: wishing to have one (white) wife in Europe and another (black) one in Africa. How is such an arrangement justified - or contested - by African men and women? To what extent do people refer to religious laws of Islam or indigenous traditions and to what extent to personal experiences and observations (eg. of emotional challenges of living in a polygamous family)? Are claims to a polygamous marriage also constructed on the basis of values derived from the West, like relativism? The paper explores how such intimate arrangements across states and cultures are conceptualised, rationalised, negotiated among (or hidden from) the different actors (the family, the European wife, the African wife or wives). It is based on my long-term research in Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia.