Published: October 19, 2020
Written by: Donna Chambers
I am a member of the Department for Hospitality, Events, Aviation and Tourism (HEAT) in the Faculty of Business, Law and Tourism.
The research that is undertaken in this department is fundamentally underpinned by critical, interdisciplinary approaches which reflect the complexity and dynamism of tourism, hospitality, events and aviation within our contemporary world.
My own research focuses primarily on how people and places are represented within tourism and is inspired by postcolonial, decolonial, critical race theory and black feminism. Postcolonial theory seeks to understand and critique the continued manifestations and powerful effects of colonialism on those peoples and places in, and from the Global South (what was previously known as the ‘Third World’ including countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Middle East).
Many of these countries were formerly under European colonial rule which lasted from around the 15th century until the independence movements of the mid to late 20th century. Postcolonial theory examines the effects of colonial domination by unpacking the representations of the former colonised peoples and places in literature, film, art and other modes of communication. Postcolonial theory allows us to understand how the way in which we represent people and places that were formerly suppressed under colonial rule has implications for how we live our lives today.
This is particularly relevant within the context of current debates around the representation and treatment of immigrants from the Global South to Europe and other Western countries manifested for example in the recent Windrush Scandal in the UK.
Decolonial theory presents a more radical approach which is focused on disrupting the traditionally dominant Western ways in which our knowledge about the world has been produced. Critical race theory is very much aligned to decolonial theory and is focused on the way in which racism is very much a feature of our contemporary societies. Finally, black feminist theory recognises that it is important to explore how the intersection between gender, class and race can help us to understand black women’s experiences of silencing, racism and discrimination. Black feminism suggests that there is no single story about women’s experiences of oppression. Clearly postcolonial, decolonial, critical race theory and black feminism are intimately connected, and I have applied all of these perspectives to a range of topics within the field of tourism.
Using decolonial theory I have argued in my research for an innovative agenda for tourism knowledge production which values perspectives from tourism scholars from the Global South and whose cultural and historical knowledge about their own societies can be used to enrich our understanding of tourism. I have contended that what we have so far been learning about tourism in our universities and colleges has been almost exclusively informed by European perspectives which has led to the silencing of perspectives from the Global South. Indeed, many of the text books and journal articles that we use in our teaching of tourism are from European and other Western scholars and one has to search very hard to find any publications which reflect the viewpoints on tourism from the former colonised peoples. In other words, people from the Global South scarcely have a voice in what is seen as legitimate tourism research and scholarship even though much of tourism takes place in these countries. I have contended that some of the ideas that have been considered as ‘new’ in the context of tourism have previously been articulated by scholars from the Global South, but these have not been acknowledged or valued within tourism studies because of the legacy of colonialism. I have suggested that there is further scope in tourism for a fuller understanding of contemporary tourism from the perspectives of the former colonised. In this research I am in solidarity with other scholars outside of tourism and student groups who have recently been advocating for the ‘decolonisation of the curriculum’.
Black feminist theory has been instrumental in enabling me to undertake a critical interrogation of the way in which black women were reconstructed by the white feminist writers and editors of the Spare Rib magazine during the first four years of the magazine’s existence (1972-1975).
Spare Rib is an iconic British feminist magazine which was published between 1972–1993 and which according to its editors had a ‘commitment to reaching out to all women, cutting across material, economic and class barriers to approach them as individuals in their own right’. Findings from my research revealed that there was relatively limited coverage or awareness of black women’s issues and black feminist theorising in these first four years of the magazine’s existence. However, where there were references to black women the narratives were largely written by white women who presumed to write about and for black women.
Today, while the voices of black women can now be heard to a much greater extent than during these initial four years of Spare Rib, they are still marginalised in many facets of economic life including as important actors within tourism and travel.
Critical race theory and particularly concepts of ‘whiteness’ and ‘white privilege’ has enabled me to analyse white female sex tourism to countries of the Global South. My research in this area has included a critical analysis of two films primarily owing to the complex colonial histories of the destination countries involved and their continued problematic postcolonial presents. The two films are Heading South, set in the Caribbean island of Haiti and released in the UK in 2006, and Paradise Love, set in the sub-Saharan East African country of Kenya, which was first screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 and on general release in 2013. In my analyses of these films I demonstrated that through sex tourism white power is reproduced and re-inscribed in the Caribbean and other parts of the Global South not only by Western men but also by Western women. Exposing the power of whiteness (including its gendered dimension) allows us to highlight a central source of exploitation that persists in tourism. I argue that addressing the continued power of whiteness is a necessary endeavour for the sustainable and ethical development of tourism in the Global South.
Overall, my research utilises qualitative techniques, primarily critical analyses of tourism representations in literature, tourism brochures, magazines, and in film. Underpinning my research is an emancipatory objective in so far as I seek to highlight inequalities and silences in the way that people and places are represented for tourism consumption and in the way in which knowledge about tourism is produced.
But my research goes beyond examining and exposing inequalities in representations and has practical implications and relevance. It opens up a wide range of discussions about racism and how this pervades every aspect of our social life including tourism practices and research. This is an important step towards positive changes for all of us in order that we can live in a more equitable and inclusive world.
Donna Chambers is interested in how people and places are represented primarily through cultural and heritage tourism, the link between heritage and national identities, postcolonial and decolonial epistemologies in research and teaching, visual methods, sexuality and in critical and innovative approaches to tourism research. Learn more about Donna Chambers in her staff profile.