An autoethnography of respectful tourism: the double-bind of a female traveller in Morocco.

Abstract

This chapter present an autoethnography of a trip the author took to Marrakech in Morocco, where despite her efforts to 'follow the rules' (e.g. dress conservatively, ignore unwanted attention, be courteous and polite), she was continually met with sexual harassment whenever she was visible as an unaccompanied woman in public. The author reflects on two conflicting values she held: the value of cultural tolerance and the value of gender equality and on the double-bind within which female travellers often find themselves.

The subversion of women’s anger in travel guidebooks

“…Finally, the Lonely Planet advice sections suggest that women are responsible for the situations that they encounter, not the harasser or abuser. Other tourism researchers have highlighted this in women's own responses (Stephens, 2020;Wilson & Little, 2008), which evidences the importance of guidebook discourse as social practice. Together these discursive strategies form a discourse that subverts women's anger, which is a useful and necessary emotion in the face of inequality (Holmes, 2014a).…”

“…The advice examined in the guidebook offers many examples of situations where a woman's anger would both help to keep her safe and allow her the opportunity to recognize the injustices she suffers in a patriarchal system, and we would hope that such a recognition would spur emancipatory action. However, we would go further than arguing that women must be permitted to access anger in response to gender-based violence; we insist instead that women be permitted access to their own anger in response to any situation which they find angering Women's travel advice is discursively (re)enforcing the double-bind that exists for women leisure travellers (Stephens, 2020), where women are required to demonstrate enjoyment of the freedom of travel while simultaneously suppressing any emotional response which is deemed socially undesirable or culturally unacceptable. As such, for the sake of women's psychological survival, guidebooks must begin to understand the role they play in (re)producing discourses which deny women access to their own emotional states.…”

“…(but what you should do instead is not clear). This discursive strategy puts the burden of responsibility on the woman traveller, which is internalised (Stephens, 2020;Yang, Khoo-Lattimore & Arcodia, 2017;Wilson & Little, 2008) the underlying message is that men will and can behave as badly as is tolerated. The implication is that it is for women to set the boundaries, and if a woman does encounter harassment, then it might be her fault for not having set them.…”

“…Leisure is believed to be an opportunity to 'relax' and 'let go', and the search for an 'authentic self' is a dominant understanding of leisure tourism (MacCannell, 1976;Wilson & Harris, 2006). Therefore the experience of women's leisure travel is one which is particularly fraught with tensions (Stephens, 2020) when femininity demands the constant suppression of one's own authentic anger. Travel guidebooks offer a unique insight into the way in which instructions regarding women's emotions, including anger, are transmitted.…”

Babymoon Tourism: Co-Creating Well-Being for Traveling Mothers

“…The method is not mainstream in tourism and business research (Buckley 2012), perhaps due to reluctance by researchers to reveal personal experiences (Bell, Bryman, and Harley 2019). Nevertheless, autoethnography is an emergent approach in tourism (Beeton 2022;Buzinde 2020;Houge Mackenzie and Kerr 2013;Kuuru 2022;Noy 2008;Scarles 2010;Shepherd, Laven, and Shamma 2020), which allows for understanding one's own subjectivity and the way in which we relate to those we encounter (Stephens 2020), and was therefore considered appropriate for this study as it allowed for an insider perspective on babymoon tourism, providing rich data about the experience of a mother-to-be.…”