| Summary: | Based on an ethnographic survey carried out between 2009 and 2014, in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, in a Brazilian tourist region (the Nordeste coast) in connection with major international real estate investments, this article reports on the experience of European entrepreneurs and investors in the realisation of real estate and tourism projects on the Latin American continent. Following an anthropological approach that seeks to place economic behaviour in its social and cultural context, the survey shows how "migration for love," marital projects, gender relations, love desires and disillusions, as well as the friendship and family relations of real estate actors can influence their economic decisions. The eroticization of tourist imaginations and the international character of the mixed couple relationships in which many of these actors were engaged add further complexity to the real estate business in the strict sense. Based on the concept of "intimate economies," inviting us to question the boundaries between the market sphere and the intimate sphere, the aim of the article is to understand the role played by "loving expatriations" in the constitution of the real estate offer of international tourist destinations.
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