Lucy Ferguson

Promoting gender equality and empowering women? Tourism and the third Millennium Development Goal

The relationship between tourism and development has been explored in tourism studies and in policy-making circles for several decades. However, very little research has been carried out into the gender dimensions of this relationship. Using the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG3) – gender equality and womens empowerment – as the focus, this paper explores this theme from a critical perspective informed by feminist approaches to development. It analyses the claim that tourism can contribute to MDG3 by reviewing the research on the impact of tourism employment on gender relations and the tensions and complexities that this presents. The main body of this paper presents a critical overview of global gender and tourism policies, focusing on the World Tourism Organisation and the World Bank. It concludes by arguing that while tourism development may, in theory, contribute to gender equality and womens empowerment, a substantive reframing of policies is required in order to be able to maximise this potential.

Interrogating ‘Gender’ in Development Policy and Practice

International development institutions have adopted ‘gender’ as a fundamental component of any policy, programme or project. However, the meaning of this is often far from the original aims of feminists fighting for a commitment to more equal gendered power relations and social justice. This article offers a detailed study of one particular strand of development funding – tourism-based microenterprises – and outlines the ways in which ‘gender’ is constructed at three different levels: the World Bank, the Honduran government and a tourism development project in Copán. It supplements analysis of policy documents with the interpretations and perspectives of policy-makers and development workers to present a rich empirical picture of the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which gender is understood at all stages of the development process. It then uses this analysis to demonstrate how these particular interpretations of ‘gender’ influenced the outcomes of the project and why it ultimately failed in its goals of integrating indigenous women into the process of tourism development.

Gender and sustainable tourism: reflections on theory and practice

Despite the rich and diverse tradition of research on the gender dimensions of tourism, such studies have had little impact on transforming unequal gendered power relations in the sector itself. In this paper, we are concerned with why this is the case and what steps might be taken to redress this situation. The paper argues that the challenges inherent in gender mainstreaming processes within public policies worldwide are replicated and – to some extent – exacerbated in the tourism sector. We contend that, despite its substantive insight into the sector, the impact of such literature has been minimal. We further suggest that this is, in part, due to the sustainable tourism paradigms resistance to incorporating gender equality and gender analysis as core principles. In order to develop these arguments, we reflect on our experiences as specialist consultants in gender and sustainable tourism, drawing out some of the key tensions of integrating gender into sustainable tourism projects. In conclusion, we argue that there is substantive work to be done for gender to be integrated into the theory and practice of sustainable tourism, offering recommendations as to how this process might be improved.

Tourism development and the restructuring of social reproduction in Central America

ABSTRACT This research speaks to two themes on which little empirical work has been carried out in IPE: tourism and social reproduction. It focuses on changing relations of social reproduction in two tourism communities in Central America – Placencia in Belize and Monteverde and Costa Rica. In contrast to the majority of literature on social reproduction, the starting point for this analysis is not the reprivatisation of social reproduction but rather an exploration of how actors in tourism communities in Central America negotiate the tensions between capitalist development and social reproduction in a context of minimal state provision. Drawing on extensive field research in these communities, I identify a gap in social reproduction generated by womens intensive and anti-social working conditions in the tourism industry combined with enduring attitudes that social reproduction remains the responsibility of women. The paper explores the responses to this gap, setting out two clear trends – the ‘contracting out’ of social reproduction and the construction of policies which aim to minimise the impact of tourism development on social reproduction. I argue that both of these responses represent privatised solutions to the social reproduction dilemma and urge continued support for progressive policy responses.

This Is Our Gender Person

Abstract Despite the prevalence of gender experts in international development institutions, their impact in terms of transformative feminist politics remains questionable. Gender experts, and their profession more broadly, have been strongly criticized by a range of feminists working in academic contexts. In particular, some have argued that neoliberalism and feminism have converged, framing the role of gender experts as primarily to legitimate and embed neoliberal models of development. This article engages with these critiques from the perspective of the gender expert her/himself, drawing on first-hand experiences to tease out some of the tensions and complexities of this work. After setting out some general challenges for gender experts, I focus on one particular aspect of the current gender and development paradigm – the “business case” for gender equality – and explore how it feels to work within such a framework. In doing so, I aim to reflect on the possibilities of promoting transformative change whilst at the same time acknowledging and embracing the dilemmas and contradictions involved in the daily politics of working as a gender expert.

Tourism, Consumption and Inequality in Central America

Much research in international political economy (IPE) has been criticised for focussing on large and powerful actors in post-industrial countries, to the neglect of sites, processes and actors in the global South. This article offers a corrective to this bias in two ways: by locating the analysis in two rural Central American communities; and by exploring the social relations of consumption in these communities. In doing this, I challenge assumptions about rural places being excluded from global processes and explore the complexities and contradictions of how such communities are inserted into global circuits of production and consumption. Drawing on extensive qualitative research, the article explores the ways in which capitalist development through tourism has reconstituted the political economy of consumption in terms of habits, attitudes and behaviour in these two communities. Using the community and the household as sites of analysis, I explore the complex ways in which inequalities have been reconfigured through changing relations of consumption. Certain kinds of social hierarchies, in particular traditional gendered power relations within the household, have been challenged. However, other inequalities – such as class, ethnicity and nationality – have been reinforced by these processes.

Towards a gendered political economy of water and tourism

In many holiday destinations, the tourism industry exerts an enormous strain on water supplies. This generates a range of social problems, not least because local inhabitants often have to compete with the tourism sector over the access, allocation and use of water for their personal and domestic needs. Nevertheless, there has been very little academic research on the link between tourism and the impact of water scarcity on destination populations in developing countries. While there is a wealth of literature on gender and tourism development, such research has tended to focus on employment relations and tourism policy and planning, neglecting ecological issues such as water. Drawing on original ethnographic research conducted in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, in 2013, this paper makes a preliminary attempt to address this gap in the literature by developing a gendered political economy approach to water in tourism development. Three key themes are identified from this research: the salience of intersectional inequalities of gender, class and nationality, in particular the different experiences of Nicaraguan women, Costa Rican women and women from the Global North; how the role of social reproduction is vital to understanding gender and water in Tamarindo due to enduring assumptions about womens perceived responsibility for water; and the gendered dimensions of conflicts over water. Such conflicts are highly gendered and contribute to reshaping of power relations in this international tourism destination. In conclusion, we argue that our findings demonstrate the need to pay attention to both intersectionality and social reproduction, as well as to identify a future research agenda for developing a gendered political economy approach to tourism and water.

Gender, Governance and Power: Finding the Global at the Local Level

One of the foundational aims of this journal is to enable articulations of globalisation other than those conceived of within a narrow, economistic modality. The articles that comprise this special issue, in our view, make a timely and innovative contribution to the plurality of analytical insights that have been published in this journal since its inception. Further, this issue represents the first issue of Globalizations that, in its entirety, takes seriously the claim that gender matters to global politics and therefore to globalisation. Ideas about gender are thoroughly bound up in the processes of integration, fragmentation, economic restructuring, and im/migration that characterise the sets of practices and politics described by the short-hand of ‘globalisation’, and in various ways the articles in this collection interrogate these practices to enrich our understanding of their particular and more general effects. Uno de los objetivos fundamentales de esta revista es facilitar las articulaciones de la globalización, en lugar de aquellas concebidas dentro de una modalidad economicista estrecha. De acuerdo a nuestro parecer, los artículos que incluye esta edición especial, forman una contribución innovadora y oportuna a la pluralidad de los conocimientos profundos que se han publicado en esta revista desde su origen. Además, esta edición representa la primera sobre Globalizaciones que en su integridad, toma seriamente la noción de que el género es importante para las políticas globales y por ende, para la globalización. Las ideas sobre el género están totalmente ligadas al proceso de integración, fragmentación, reestructuración económica y a la inmigración/migración que caracterizan al conjunto de prácticas y políticas descritas bajo la abreviatura de ‘globalización’ y de muchas formas, los artículos en esta colección cuestionan estas prácticas para enriquecer nuestro entendimiento de sus efectos particulares y más generales. 本刊的基本目的之一，就是要使除限定在一个狭隘的、经济主义程式之外的全球化阐述成为可能。组成这一专辑的所有论文，在我们看来，为推动本刊自创办以来所发表的诸多分析性洞见的多元争鸣做出了及时和具有创新性的贡献。进而言之，本专辑作为一个整体，代表了《全球化》杂志首次严肃对待性别对于全球政治进而对于全球化具有重要意义这一吁求。关于性别的许多观点完全被绑定在一体化、碎片化、经济重构以及移民这些进程之中，这些进程表征了“全球化”这一短语所叙述的一系列实践和政治，本专辑中的论文以多种方式审视了这些全球实践，丰富了我们对其特定的及更一般影响的理解。

Tourism, the Millennium Development Goals, and Gender Equality

While institutions representing the tourism industry are keen to claim that tourism contributes to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there is little evidence to suggest that this is the case. Indeed, in many ways tourism perpetuates underdevelopment and the violation of human rights. This article provides a detailed analysis of the relationship between tourism and the MDGs, with a focus on MDG3: promoting gender equality and empowering women. Tourism offers the potential to contribute to development goals including womens empowerment, but a significant restructuring of the sector would have to take place in order to achieve such goals.

Gülay Caglar, Elisabeth Prügl and Susanne Zwingel (eds). Feminist Strategies in International Governance

This rich edited collection makes a welcome contribution to the emerging literature on feminist expertise and gender knowledge. The formation of UN Women is presented as the historical context through which to reflect on the achievements and challenges of feminist strategies in international organizations, and to construct a feminist vision of the role and functions of this new institution. Feminist actors in international institutions are presented as “profoundly unstable and always mobile” (4) and there is an explicit acknowledgment of the ways in which “strategies develop their own logic and acquire new meanings once they are deployed in different organizational and socio-political contexts” (5). The over-arching analytical debate of the book involves questioning whether the primary effect of feminist practices in international organizations has been to govern – albeit through “subtle and indirect means” (5). Moreover, the authors question whether in some contexts feminist strategizing “is turned from a model of resistance to an instrument of power” (6). In part one on feminist strategies, two chapters stand out in addressing these themes. Lisa Prügl presents gender expertise as “a strategic tool to help pinpoint the reasons for continued gender inequality and subordination, and to advance feminist goals” (58). Through an analysis of gender training manuals, she shows how feminist knowledge “gains authority, unfolding rationalities of government while also battling mechanisms of power and disempowerment” (70). Mariama Williams offers a fascinating study of feminist international organizing from the bottom up, using the case of the International Gender and Trade Network and the World Trade Organization. She reflects on feminist frustrations over the “institutional takeover of the gender and trade agenda and its transformation into a much narrower and more instrumental agenda that legitimizes the trade system by “making trade work for women” rather than rethinking the trade policy environment itself” (106), reflecting the concerns outlined in the introductory chapter. Suzanne Zwingel’s excellent chapter on CEDAW in part two on human rights sets out lessons learned from feminist strategizing. She outlines “the struggle to find a balance between competing demands, visible in the committee’s self-construction as a legitimate body in the eyes of state parties, expressed in a specific context of expertize, cultural inclusiveness and a not-too-radical feminist agenda” (122). In addition, she highlights how it was easier to get governments to ratify the convention than to have them set aside sufficient resources to make its monitoring mechanism effective