Geographies of the heart in transnational spaces: love and the intimate lives of British migrants in Dubai

With reference to British transnationalism in Dubai, this article examines the discourses surrounding three types of intimate relationship couple, family and friend as sites in which love might be located and experienced. As such, it responds to a widespread neglect of the emotions in accounts of migration. The discussion focuses on the ways in which British migrants negotiate different sorts of love relationships with Britons both in the UK and in Dubai; how such relations in different places are inter-connected; and the way in which they are central to spatial imaginations of mobility/dwelling, home/away, proximity/distance, and absence/presence.