Arca Publishing

Khoo-Lattimore, Catheryn

 
 
Title: Dr. Mum: The Mother-Researcher’s Role in Collecting Data from Young Travellers 
Author: Catheryn Khoo-Lattimore 
Affiliation: Griffith University 
Contact: c.khoo-lattimore@griffith.edu.au 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
Despite the many existing publications on the impact of motherhood on tourism 
experiences, none of the researchers have written themselves into their research. Consequently, 
we know very little about how (and if) the researchers’ own identities as mothers impact on the 
data collection processes (and subsequently the data) they had collected from mothers 
themselves. While these studies have provided insights into how motherhood changes the way 
women experience holidays over the decades, our knowledge of how the dual roles of 
motherhood and researcher changes research on holiday experiences remain limited.  
This paper aims to explore the extent to which the researcher’s identity as a mother 
influences research work with children. I first declare my epistemological interests as an outsider 
located within the tourism academy, but also as an insider studying myself as a research subject. 
I am an Asian academic whose research interest is tourist and guest behaviour, with a particular 
focus on women, families, and young children. Not coincidentally, I am also a mother of three 
young children between the ages of six months and seven years. Through the lens of 
motherhood, I demonstrate how tourism research with children can be advanced when 
researchers reflect on their multiple identities.  
In particular, this paper will draw from two stages of a qualitative project where children 
between the ages of 5 and 6 were interviewed on their family holidays. I adopt a dual role of the 
participant as well as the investigator. The participant role is that of a female mother-researcher, 
while the investigator in me becomes immersed in the field in order to elucidate for my audience 
(and for myself) the impact motherhood has on conducting focus groups with young children. In 
doing so, autoethnography functions as a method, and the focus is on understanding how 
motherhood can assist in enhancing the data collection experience. My autoethnographic data is 
in the form of my experiences with the studies conducted, my memory, my reflection, and 
subsequently, my understanding of those experiences.  
Results from the autoethnographic data will focus on four dimensions of motherhood: 
motherhood and ethics; motherhood and access to quality data; the role of motherhood in the 
participant-researcher relationship; and motherhood as an epistemological element throughout 
the research process. This paper contributes to the current discourse of qualitative research in 
two specific ways. First, the work could be read as a reflexive study of an Asian mother 
researching family tourism, from the children’s perspectives. This paper also serves to expand 
conversations on epistemology. Within the context of motherhood and researcher identity, I 
provide epistemological discourse from the perspective of a mother that adds to our existing 
understandings of knowledge and knowledge generation. In doing so, I have not attempted to 
categorise these epistemological emergences into specific origin. Rather, I have deliberately left 
them open for future scholarship, with an aim to diversifying current research ideologies and 
ontologies.   


English

Dr. Mum: The Mother-Researcherâs Role in Collecting Data from Young Travellers

Kato, Kumi

 
 
Title: Pilgrimage and Community: Slow Tourism Development along the Kumano Pilgrimage 
Trail, Japan  
Author: Kumi Kato 
Affiliation: Wakayama University 
Contact: kumikato@centre.wakayamau.ac.jp 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
Spiritually motivated travel, and specifically pilgrimage, has been an important part of 
tourism closely associated with religions, yet spirituality today carries a wider range of meaning, 
including health, wellness, and self-improvement. Further, today’s pilgrims, especially those 
travelling on foot, tend to be interested in sustainability-oriented philosophy, ways of life, and 
travel modes, thus bringing a ‘slow quality’ to tourism, which involves making real and 
meaningful connections with people, places, culture, food, heritage, and the environment 
(Caffyn, 2009). Enjoying the process of journey itself; taking an interest in local authenticity and 
engagement; and reducing ecological, social, and cultural impacts are some of these qualities. 
This style of tourism shapes the kind of services provided by surrounding communities, 
including accommodation, food, and activities, and overall destination planning and 
development. Travellers and the local community co-create the destination, directed by the 
spirituality of place expressed in various contemporary terms. 
This paper first explores the evolving meaning of spirituality and tourism both in Japan 
and globally; it then examines the specific case of the world heritage nominated pilgrimage trail, 
Kumano-kodo, or Kumano ancient trail, in Wakayama, Japan. The Kumano journey, originating 
in the 11th century as a pilgrimage from ancient capitals to Kumano sacred sites, was regarded as 
a ‘rebirth’ experience, going into the other world and back. Today the experience is interpreted 
as a process of ‘healing’ mind and body. The main focus here is on local community 
perspectives—how they may respond to contemporary visitor interests, and how it may shape the 
overall direction of tourism development. The local community here includes those who have 
moved into the region, attracted by the aspects of regional lifestyle: a safe and clean 
environment, community ties, and time and space allowed for personal and family. Such 
‘lifestyle migrants’ often bring new ideas, networks, and skills, which generate global 
connections and a means to promote places (e.g., via SNS). This can also provide much needed 
solutions to economic and social declines in rural areas due to an ageing and decreasing 
population. 
As part of an ongoing study using perspectives of critical and hopeful tourism as a 
platform, the research attempts to situate contemporary spirituality as a guiding approach for 
sustainability, and the spirituality-focused (walking) journey as a means to slow tourism 
development. Slow tourism enables those who participate to express their conscious choice, 
demanding, even indirectly, a sustainability orientation in tourism. This allows tourism to be 
“one of the mechanisms through which people are able to present their identity to others” 
(Dickinson, et al., 2011, p. 295) and advance their “life politic” (Butcher, 2008). Tourism here is 
seen as a counter movement to fast-paced mass mobility, a way of advocating a slow 
engagement with local places and people, letting the walking set the pace and content of 
development. 
  


Pilgrimage and Community: Slow Tourism Development along the Kumano Pilgrimage Trail, Japan

Jeffrey, Heather

Vizcaino, Paola

 
 
Title: Victim Blaming Doesn’t Take a Holiday 
Author: Heather L. Jeffrey1 & Paola Vizcaino Suárez2 
Affiliation: University of Bedfordshire1, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México2 
Contact: paola.vizcaino.suarez@gmail.com 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
Gender is socially constructed, shaped by gender discourses that permeate society, and is 
performed every day in every interaction. At the intersection between contemporary feminist 
theories and postmodern currents, in particular poststructuralism, it is recognized that gender 
identities are not static but are (re)constructed from social and political discourses. The critical 
analysis of discourse is concerned precisely with the reproduction of social domination through 
discourse. Discourse is an important vehicle for defining socially accepted activities for both 
women and men, including activities related to leisure, tourism, and travel. In the Latin 
American context, violence against women is normalized by adherence to a patriarchal system 
that seeks to blame victims without taking into account the role of abusers. The field of travel 
and tourism is not immune to this trend, since female victims of violence are often held 
responsible for their victimization or even femicide. 
Whilst a small stream of research has analysed female tourists in the English speaking 
world, less research has focussed on tourists from Other countries. A paucity of 
conceptualisations concerning Other female tourists can unwittingly reify the binary 
constructions of hosts and guests. This paper attempts to address these concerns by exploring and 
opening debate on gender-based violence and the normalisation of victim blaming, in the context 
of travel and tourism. A critical discourse analysis investigates user generated comments on 
online news that reported the case of two Argentine tourists, Marina Menegazzo and María José 
Coni, who were murdered during a trip to Ecuador in 2016. The Internet offers a space for 
participants from around the world to (re)construct narratives and discourses, while providing an 
important source of data for researchers, and it can be a space of misogyny and sexism with the 
potential to perpetuate and even intensify existing gender inequalities. 
 
 
 
  


Victim Blaming Doesnât Take a Holiday

Hockert, Emily

LÃ¼thje, Monika

Ilola, Heli

Gazes and Faces in Tourist Photography

Grimwood, Bryan

Caton, Kellee

 
 
Title: Dialoguing Morality and Mobility in Tourism Studies 
Author: Bryan S.R. Grimwood1 & Kellee Caton2 
Affiliation: University of Waterloo1, Thompson Rivers University2 
Contact: bgrimwood@uwaterloo.ca 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
Morality and mobility are central to tourism. Although each of these concepts has gained 
rather dramatic popularity in tourism studies over the last decade—articulated as moral (Caton, 
2012) and mobility (Hannam, 2009) ‘turns’ taken by the field—we have found few examples 
where these ideas are intentionally merged or considered and grappled with in parallel. In this 
presentation, we explore the epistemological contours and convergences of these two analytical 
terrains. We argue that both perspectives are characterized not only by an ontological drive, 
regarding what aspect of a phenomenon we should foreground in studying it, but also by their 
capacity to undergird epistemo-political interventions into our ways of being in the world with 
others. We then illustrate our discussion with examples drawn from work published in a special 
issue on the theme of “Tourism Moralities and Mobilities,” which we recently guest edited for 
Tourist Studies. 
 
 
 
 
  


Dialoguing Morality and Mobility in Tourism Studies

Folmer, Akke

 
 
Title: Can Ordinary Wildlife in Everyday Green Places Be Extraordinary? 
Author: Akke Folmer  
Affiliation: Stenden University of Applied Sciences 
Contact: akke.folmer@stenden.com 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
In wildlife tourism studies, it has been found that tourists who had meaningful wildlife 
experiences during their holidays also highly appreciate encountering wildlife near home. 
However, the importance of experiencing wildlife in everyday green places has not received 
much attention. Local green places are important to our health and wellbeing, and thus it is worth 
gaining insight into how people are connected with them. In my study, I investigated how multi-
sensory wildlife experiences shape a person’s bond with his or her favorite local green place in a 
highly urbanised society, the Netherlands. I conducted walk-along interviews with thirteen 
participants with varying socio-demographics and places of residence in their favorite local green 
place. These ranged from urban parks, agricultural land, and forested estates to large protected 
areas. The interviews took place over a whole year, covering all seasons. The results show that 
familiarity plays a central role in how wildlife shapes a bond with a favorite local green place. 
Through repeated visits, individuals build a relationship with the place and its wildlife, 
accommodating three ways in which a bond can form: (1) the localized self, (2) the internalized 
place, and (3) embeddedness in Panta Rhei. First, experiencing familiar wildlife—for instance, 
hearing well-known birdsong or regularly seeing deer—can trigger (childhood) memories, often 
related to significant others. This adds to feelings of rootedness in a favorite local green place, 
called the localized self. Second, over time, the bond can be strengthened by increasing 
knowledge about both wildlife and the place. This leads to successful and intentional wildlife 
encounters with feelings of pride and accomplishment. Individuals can also feel rewarded by the 
place through ‘receiving’ unexpected wildlife encounters. These wildlife experiences can lead to 
the internalized place. Third, wildlife experiences can provide individuals with embeddedness in 
Panta Rhei: the flows and cycles of nature and life. The presence of wildlife can be very 
important in connecting individuals with their natural surroundings, and with the natural world of 
which they feel part. Birds in particular play a prominent, yet undervalued, role in place bonding. 
Birdsong and bird behavior (building nests, migrating) in a familiar place can provide a sense of 
time as well as timelessness; birds can signify natural rhythms, announcing sunrise, spring or 
winter, year after year; they can provide comfort and continuity in an ever-changing life. Thus, 
although local wildlife, such as ducks, blackbirds, swans, foxes, and deer, may not be large or 
iconic, ordinary wildlife can be extraordinary as it plays such an important role in place bonding 
and in connecting people with the world. 
 
 
 
 
 
  


Can Ordinary Wildlife in Everyday Green Places Be Extraordinary?

Eftychiou, Evi

 
Title: Identity Politics in Rural Cyprus: Local and Global Power Relations 
Author: Evi Eftychiou 
Affiliation: University of Nicosia 
Contact: eftychiou.e@unic.ac.cy 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
This paper focuses on the disputed identity of rural Cyprus. It is an ethnographic study on 
tourism that argues that the power of western hegemony not only defines but also reverses the 
definition of ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ identity in the cultural setting of Cyprus, in such a way 
that its authority is maintained and legitimized. By focusing on identity politics and tourism in 
the Troodos mountainous region, this study examines the conflict between native elites and 
locals over the definition of local identity. 
In the postcolonial setting of the 1960s, native elites reproduced the western vision of 
‘development’, ‘progress’, and ‘modernity’, as expressed in Europe after the Second World War. 
The invented concept of ‘modernity’ was introduced by native elites and was translated into 
policies and strategies towards the achievement of rapid ‘progress’ and the development of mass 
tourism in the coastal zones of Cyprus. As a result, the Cypriot authorities neglected the Troodos 
mountainous region as a low-priority area, and its residents were exposed as underdeveloped, 
backward peasants. 
The economic boom of the 1970s and 1980s provided to rural residents the opportunity to 
finally achieve ‘progress’, by reproducing the mass tourism model. In the meantime, though, the 
native elites reversed the definition of modernity, which reproduced the western principles of 
sustainable development, and environmental and cultural heritage protection. The 
‘underdeveloped’ region of Troodos was now identified as ideal for the implementation of 
environment and heritage conservation projects, with the ultimate goal of developing small-scale 
cultural tourism in the area. In this context, native elites appropriated material tradition—in other 
words, elements that were once classified as evidence of backwardness—in order to achieve 
‘modernity’. The refusal of locals to reproduce the new paradigm of development and their 
persistence to strive for material modernity left them once again exposed as ‘backward’, 
‘ignorant’, and ‘parvenus’ peasants. 
This paper will explore the extent to which identity politics at the local level are 
intertwined with global unequal power relations by critically approaching the dominant 
discourse. To address this issue, I will explore the flow of power, from Northern European 
experts to local native elites and from local experts to rural residents of the Troodos region. It is 
argued that local cultural conditions are involved in a constant interplay with western or 
universal principles, to such a degree that local and global processes are now intertwined and 
interconnected. In other words, not only are local conditions influenced by globalization, but 
global principles and processes are also influenced by local cultural configurations, even in the 
West itself. 
Having said this, I do not underestimate the role of the existing power relations in the 
global system. On the contrary, I argue that the existing unequal power relations are involved in 
a vicious cycle of producing, maintaining, legitimizing, and normalizing western hegemony. It is 
overall argued that the emergence of mass tourism discourse in the 1960s and its transformation 
into reflexive tourism discourse in the late 1980s is a reproduction of the ‘same paradigm’, 
 
namely the western paradigm.


Identity Politics in Rural Cyprus: Local and Global Power Relations

Cole, Stroma

 
Title: Empowered or Burdened? Tourism, Gender, Intersectionality, and Emotion 
Author: Stroma Cole 
Affiliation: University of the West of England 
Contact: stroma.cole@uwe.ac.uk 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
According to the UNWTO (2015) “tourism can empower women in multiple ways…and 
is a tool to unlock their potential.” But for which women and under what circumstances? This 
paper will explore the intersecting categories of identity—gender, ethnicity, life-stage—and 
ecology, and how they interplay and add complexity, in order to interrogate this version of 
tourism and gender relations. Furthermore, it explores the role of emotions in understanding 
tourism development. 
The unequal gendered power relations embedded in the tourism sector have been well 
rehearsed (Gentry, 2007; Schellhorn, 2010; Vandegrift, 2008; Ferguson, 2011; Tucker & 
Boonabaana, 2012; Duffy et al., 2015). However, inequalities in terms of access to resources, 
greater vulnerabilities, and disproportionate negative impacts have not yet been subject to 
systematic gender analysis. 
Communities have largely been considered homogeneous. This paper not only provides a 
gendered picture of inequalities but also unpacks which women and why are empowered or 
burdened by tourism development. 
Research sponsored by the British academy consisted of 88 interviews and four focus 
groups in April–July 2015 in the small east Indonesian town of Labuan Bajo. Neoliberal 
economic development policies have promoted tourism growth at any cost (Dale, 2015) and led 
to price rises and competition for natural resources, including water. This paper considers not 
only how women bear a disproportionate share of the hidden costs of tourism development, but 
also unpacks the differential impact on different groups of women and explores how they deal 
with their daily water struggles. 
By unpeeling layers of multiple intersecting inequalities, a number of conclusions can be 
drawn: poverty compounds gender inequality and this is frequently related to ethnicity. Interlaid 
with socio-economic and ethnic identities, age and life-stage further complicated the picture. 
Tourism development has dramatically increased the cost of living and the cost of water in 
particular, driving women into exploitative paid work and doubling their burdens as they 
continue to be responsible for all domestic and water work. Migrants from further afield, 
including foreigners have used their financial and social capital to reap the greatest benefits from 
tourism. These women did not experience the expense of water, which they found relatively 
cheap, did not do their own domestic and water work, and were empowered in the ways the 
UNWTO suggests. 
For the majority of women, everyday material practices: water collection, queueing, 
remembering to call and waiting for a delivery, moving hose-pipes and buckets, were arenas 
where gender norms and social inequalities are re-enforced. By exploring everyday emotions a 
more thorough understanding of tourism development was developed. As Heng (1996) suggests, 
pain and anger are rich sources of opposition knowledge among oppressed women. Hitherto 
these emotional geographies have been under-explored in tourism. The study found relations 
with water were emotional: worry, stress and shame affected social relations and added to 
 
women’s feelings of powerlessness. The women were unable to control the water that didn’t 
flow or the tourism development that was stealing their supplies. Lack of control and 
powerlessness are the opposite to the dreams of empowerment sold by the UNWTO.


Empowered or Burdened? Tourism, Gender, Intersectionality, and Emotion

Choi, Suh-hee

 
Title: What Tourists Seek in Fair Travel: A Case of Korean Participants of Good Travel 
Programmes to Asian Destinations 
Author: Suh-hee Choi 
Affiliation: Institute for Tourism Studies, Macao 
Contact: suhhee@ift.edu.mo 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
This case study about Good Travel—a community-based tourism enterprise—focuses on 
the organization of alternative tourism programmes and explores how one of its targeted, and its 
most loyal, demographic group—Korean middle-aged alternative tourists—is motivated to 
participate in and experience such an alternative form of tourism. Interviews with the repeat 
participants showed that, rather than consuming the host community’s unique tourism offering, 
the tourists considered interactions with the host community and feelings of compassion as the 
most memorable components of their experience. 
  


What Tourists Seek in Fair Travel: A Case of Korean Participants of Good Travel Programmes to Asian Destinations

Cheer, Joseph

Matthews, Leigh

Goldsworthy, Kent

Flanagan, Karen

 
Title: Modern Slavery and Tourism: When Holidays and Human Exploitation Coincide  
Author: Joseph M. Cheer1, Leigh Mathews2, Kent Goldsworthy3, Karen Flanagan4 
Affiliation: Monash University1, ReThink Orphanages2, RMIT University3, Save the Children4 
Contact: joseph.cheer@monash.edu 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
The intersection between tourism and the trade in humans is a well-established 
phenomenon. In this exploratory academic-practitioner project, particular focus is given to 
orphanage tourism in less-developed-country contexts where the performance of this trade is 
underlined by encounters between comparatively affluent international tourists and less wealthy 
hosts in countries of the Global South. The principal question posed underlines the extent to 
which international multi-agency frameworks are harmonized (or not) in less developed 
countries where poverty and development concerns appear central to the development of 
orphanage tourism. We draw from an exploratory multi-modal study (content analysis, key 
informant interviews, field observations) underlined by a theoretical framework that embraces 
geographies of compassion (Mostafanezhad, 2013) and Rotabi, Roby, and Bunkers’ (2016) 
notion of altruistic exploitation. The principal aim at this stage of the project is the development 
of a policy framework for how agencies (government, non-government, and civil society groups) 
can better cooperate to manage the orphanage tourism phenomenon. We compartmentalize our 
discussion and pay particular attention to orphanage tourism in South and Southeast Asian 
contexts. 
The implications for this research are manifold, including the conceptualization of policy 
and practice approaches for greater agency-to-agency, government-to-government, and agency-
to-government collaboration to protect the rights of children. In seeking to unpack extant multi-
agency frameworks against the exploitation of children for tourism, we conceptualize a 
governance and policy framework that enables all actors to support social justice concerns of 
children who have been exposed to or vulnerable to exploitation via orphanage tourism. This 
paper seeks to advance the theoretical frameworks embedded in geographies of compassion and 
altruistic exploitation and integrate this into research centered on orphanage tourism. 
 
 
 
 
  


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