Tourism Geographies Podcast
Illuminating Solo Female Research Experiences
Female researchers continue facing challenging situations during their field work
By Heike Schänzel and Manuela Gutberlet
Since the #MeToo social movement, sexual harassment and abuse are not a taboo anymore worldwide. However, women continue facing challenging situations during their everyday work. For example, the study of tourism, being cross-cultural, often require an immersion in the location where the fieldwork takes place.
“Sexual violence, sexual harassment and assault in field research is still an uncomfortable and under-discussed phenomenon in the social sciences, not just in tourism studies.” said Prof Heike Schanzel who works as a Professor at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. She stressed that “there is a pressing need to normalise the discussion of sexual politics in the field, specifically concerning occurrences of gender-associated risks in fieldwork and report on the unexpected physical and mental health risks for women researchers.”
Gender Equality in Field
Her study was born to bring about positive change in the debate about gender equality in field research and challenge power structures within a previously rather male dominated area. The study is taking an exploratory approach within an interpretivist paradigm. It is based on the fieldwork experiences of 13 women from diverse cultural and academic backgrounds with the participants sharing their subjective realities of researching in tourism geographies. Some reflected on their doctoral research experiences, others on professional research or supervisor experiences. Her research published in Tourism Geographies takes a feminist theorethical lense to reveal the hidden dimensions women are engaged in ‘voluntary risk taking’ leading to e.g. marriage proposals, forced kissing and even kidnapping attempts, during their solo fieldwork.
The findings highlight an urgent need to provide an imperative for fieldworker safety, wellbeing considerations, and alternative ways of researching.
Heike Schänzel is an Associate Professor at Aukland University of Technology, Department of Tourism and Hospitality. Her academic passion is about better understanding intergenerational relationships and gender within the context of tourism and hospitality. This includes social sustainability and social justice issues along with childism and feminism in tourism. She is the chief-co-editor for Social Impact of Tourism, a specialty journal of Frontiers in Sustainable Tourism. Her other passions include skiing, sailing, trekking, and yoga.
Listen to the podcast here:
Sexual politics in the field: gendered research spaces in tourism geographies
Season 1, Ep. 5
Mary Mostafanezhad speaks to Heike Schänzel about Sexual politics in the field: gendered research spaces in tourism geographies.
You can read the full article here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2022.2077426
