Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Women travellers'

This study examines five counter-narratives written by British women between 1832 and 1885 who wrote in a non-conformist or negative manner about their travel experiences in foreign countries. In considering a small number of women travellers who took an alternative approach to narrating their experiences, a key objective of this study is to consider the reasons for the way in which the women writing counter-narratives positioned their writing. After considering how the quasi-scientific concept of domestic womanhood attempted to restrict Victorian women in general, and in particular influenced how women travellers were viewed, an exploration of counter-narratives questions whether the sustained interest in more positive travel accounts reflects a simplified contemporary, if not feminist, reading of Victorian women. An examination follows of the influence of discourse criticism, alternative interpretations of geographical space, and the presence of intertextuality in travel writing. The chapters are then arranged chronologically, with each counter-narrative being analysed as emanating from the range of discourses that were in conflict during the period. The writers form a varied group, travelling and living in five different countries, with a range of contradictory voices. Susannah Moodie and Emily Innes are outspoken in their criticism of British government policy for Canada and the Malay States respectively; Isabella Fane in India and Emmeline Lott in Egypt are disdainful of foreign practices which were otherwise considered fascinating on account of their exoticism; Frances Elliot differentiates her writing by opposing the ubiquitous influence of guidebooks for European travel. Thus each account records an aspect of political or cultural opposition to established discourses circulating at the time, as the women challenge the 'grand narratives' of foreign travel in different ways. Because such accounts may be challenged by literature of the period, the study positions the women in the context of their contemporaries, and thus each chapter examines the counter-narrative alongside another account by a female writer who travelled or lived in a similar area during the same era. Moreover, before examining the range of discursive complexities and tensions that emerge in each case study, the writers are positioned in their geographical locations and historical moments so that the texts are read against the cultural background to which the women were originally responding. The marginalisation of such counter-narratives has led to gaps in our understanding of travel writing from the period: where accounts once coexisted they are separated, and positive accounts are privileged over negative ones. It is this discontinuity of knowledge that the study will address in order to create a truer picture of the diversity of travel writing at the time.

This thesis brings together two important developments in contemporary geography; firstly, the recognition of the need to write critical histories of geographical thought and, particularly, the relationship between modern geography and European imperialism, and secondly, the attempt by feminist geographers to countervail the absence of women in these histories. Drawing on recent innovative attempts by geographers to construct alternative, contextual perspectives in (re)writing histories of geographical thought, the thesis analyzes the travel narratives of British women travellers in West Africa between 1840 and 1915. Recent attempts by feminists to include women in histories of geography and imperialism have, all too often, failed to analyze critically the role of women in imperial culture, or have reproduced gender dichotomies in their analysis. This thesis seeks to overcome these problems in three ways. Firstly, it explores the contributions of women travellers to imperial culture, primarily through their production of popular geographies. Secondly, it analyzes the ways in which these women were empowered in the imperial context by virtue of both race and class. Thirdly, it frames the accounts of each woman within the specific spatial and temporal context of their journeys in order to explore the complexities in the popular geographies they produced. The thesis illustrates that while gender was an important factor in the construction of images in the travel narratives of Victorian women travellers, this cannot be divorced from the wider context of their journey, nor from other elements in power relations based on difference such as race and class. Using this framework, the study explores in detail the production of popular geographies of the landscapes and peoples of West Africa by British women travellers, and formulates an argument on how women and their experiences can be included in histories of geographical thought.

All kinds of travellers came to Bali in the 1930s. Many of them produced books and photographs, which later incited more visitors to come and see Bali for themselves. The works of these image-makers who travelled to Bali are the result of actual experience and recounted journeys. Their descriptions of Bali, although based on authentic experience, are also the result of literary and pictorial readings. Their accounts or representations are often enriched with material accumulated from fiction, biblical references, and scientific books, as well as paintings and photographs. These image-makers of Bali did not arrive without mental luggage. Both the textual and visual image-makers constructed images of the paradise according to their own fantasies and personal experience, as did the consumers of those images. The representation of Balinese women was thus heavily influenced by earlier travellers, photographers, and scholars. However, it is difficult to know who imitates whom and whose images can be cited as authentic. The previous readings or visual representations condition expectations in each traveller, so that she or he fashions images inspired by those already in circulation. The themes which recur over and over in photographs confirm existing stereotypical concepts. In other words, these representations influence perceptions of the 'other' that persist to the present day.

Women are increasingly active in the participation and consumption of travel, and are now recognised as a growing force within the tourism industry. This trend is linked to changing social and political circumstances for Western women around the world. Within Australia specifically, women's opportunities for education and for earning equitable incomes through employment have improved. Furthermore, traditional ideologies of the family have shifted, so that social expectations of marriage and the production of children do not yield as much power as they once did. As a result of these shifts, women living in contemporary Australia have a wider range of resources and opportunities with which to access an ever-increasing array of leisure/travel choices. It appears that one of the many ways in which women have been exercising their relatively recent financial and social autonomy is through independent travel. The solo woman traveller represents a growing market segment, with research showing that increasing numbers of females are choosing to travel alone, without the assistance or company of partners, husbands or packaged tour groups. However, little empirical research has explored the touristic experiences of solo women travellers, or examined the constraints and challenges they may face when journeying alone. 'Constraints' have been described variously as factors which hinder one's ability to participate in desired leisure activities, to spend more time in those activities, or to attain anticipated levels of satisfaction and benefit. While the investigation of constraints has contributed to the leisure studies discipline for a number of decades, the exploration of their influence on tourist behaviour and the tourist experience has been virtually overlooked. Research has shown that despite the choices and opportunities women have today, the freedom they have to consume those choices, and to access satisfying leisure and travel experiences, may be constrained by their social and gendered location as females. Although theorisations of constraint have remained largely in the field of leisure studies, it is argued and demonstrated in this thesis that there is potential in extending constraints theory to the inquiry of the tourist experience. Grounded in theoretical frameworks offered by gender studies, feminist geography, sociology and leisure, this qualitative study set out to explore the impact of constraints on women's solo travel experiences. Forty in-depth interviews were held with Australian women who had travelled solo at some stage of their adult lives. Adopting an interpretive and feminist-influenced research paradigm, it was important to allow the women to speak of their lives, constraints and experiences in their own voices and on their own terms. In line with qualitative methodologies, it is these women's words which form the data for this study. Based on a 'grounded' approach to data analysis, the results reveal that constraints do exist and exert influence on these women's lives and travel experiences in a myriad of ways. Four inter-linking categories of constraint were identified, namely socio-cultural, personal, practical and spatial. Further definition of these categories evolved, depending on where the women were situated in their stage of the solo travel experience (that is, pre-travel or during-travel). The results of this study show that there are identifiable and very real constraints facing solo women travellers. These constraints could stem from the contexts of their home environments, or from the socio-cultural structures of the destinations through which they travelled. However, these constraints were not immutable, insurmountable or even necessarily consciously recognised by many of the women interviewed. In fact, it became increasingly evident that women were findings ways and means to 'negotiate' their constraints, challenges and limitations. Three dominant negotiation responses to constraint could be identified; the women could choose to seek access to solo travel when faced with pre-travel constraints: they could withdraw from solo travel because of those same constraints, or they could decide to continue their journeys as a result of their in-situ constraints. Evidence of women negotiating suggests that constraints are not insurmountable barriers, and confirms that constraints do not necessarily foreclose access to travel. Furthermore, a focus on negotiation re-positions women as active agents in determining the course of their lives and the enjoyment of their solo travel experiences, rather than as passive acceptors of circumstance and constraint. Linking with the concept of negotiation, solo travel was also shown to be a site of resistance, freedom and empowerment for these forty women. Through solo travel, it was apparent that the women could transgress the structures and roles which influenced and governed their lives. This thesis shows that, through solo travel, the women interviewed found an autonomous and self-determining 'journey of their own'. At the same time, the extent to which this really was a journey of their own was questioned and revealed to be problematic under a feminist/gendered lens. Thus a more appropriate concept of women's solo travel is that it is a 'relative escape'. That is, their journeys, escapes and experiences were always situated relative to the societal expectations and perceptions of home; relative to the gendered perceptions and ideologies of the destination, and relative to the limited spatial freedoms as a result of a socially constructed geography of fear.

Women are increasingly active in the participation and consumption of travel, and are now recognised as a growing force within the tourism industry. This trend is linked to changing social and political circumstances for Western women around the world. Within Australia specifically, women's opportunities for education and for earning equitable incomes through employment have improved. Furthermore, traditional ideologies of the family have shifted, so that social expectations of marriage and the production of children do not yield as much power as they once did. As a result of these shifts, women living in contemporary Australia have a wider range of resources and opportunities with which to access an ever-increasing array of leisure/travel choices. It appears that one of the many ways in which women have been exercising their relatively recent financial and social autonomy is through independent travel. The solo woman traveller represents a growing market segment, with research showing that increasing numbers of females are choosing to travel alone, without the assistance or company of partners, husbands or packaged tour groups. However, little empirical research has explored the touristic experiences of solo women travellers, or examined the constraints and challenges they may face when journeying alone. 'Constraints' have been described variously as factors which hinder one's ability to participate in desired leisure activities, to spend more time in those activities, or to attain anticipated levels of satisfaction and benefit. While the investigation of constraints has contributed to the leisure studies discipline for a number of decades, the exploration of their influence on tourist behaviour and the tourist experience has been virtually overlooked. Research has shown that despite the choices and opportunities women have today, the freedom they have to consume those choices, and to access satisfying leisure and travel experiences, may be constrained by their social and gendered location as females. Although theorisations of constraint have remained largely in the field of leisure studies, it is argued and demonstrated in this thesis that there is potential in extending constraints theory to the inquiry of the tourist experience. Grounded in theoretical frameworks offered by gender studies, feminist geography, sociology and leisure, this qualitative study set out to explore the impact of constraints on women's solo travel experiences. Forty in-depth interviews were held with Australian women who had travelled solo at some stage of their adult lives. Adopting an interpretive and feminist-influenced research paradigm, it was important to allow the women to speak of their lives, constraints and experiences in their own voices and on their own terms. In line with qualitative methodologies, it is these women's words which form the data for this study. Based on a 'grounded' approach to data analysis, the results reveal that constraints do exist and exert influence on these women's lives and travel experiences in a myriad of ways. Four inter-linking categories of constraint were identified, namely socio-cultural, personal, practical and spatial. Further definition of these categories evolved, depending on where the women were situated in their stage of the solo travel experience (that is, pre-travel or during-travel). The results of this study show that there are identifiable and very real constraints facing solo women travellers. These constraints could stem from the contexts of their home environments, or from the socio-cultural structures of the destinations through which they travelled. However, these constraints were not immutable, insurmountable or even necessarily consciously recognised by many of the women interviewed. In fact, it became increasingly evident that women were findings ways and means to 'negotiate' their constraints, challenges and limitations. Three dominant negotiation responses to constraint could be identified; the women could choose to seek access to solo travel when faced with pre-travel constraints: they could withdraw from solo travel because of those same constraints, or they could decide to continue their journeys as a result of their in-situ constraints. Evidence of women negotiating suggests that constraints are not insurmountable barriers, and confirms that constraints do not necessarily foreclose access to travel. Furthermore, a focus on negotiation re-positions women as active agents in determining the course of their lives and the enjoyment of their solo travel experiences, rather than as passive acceptors of circumstance and constraint. Linking with the concept of negotiation, solo travel was also shown to be a site of resistance, freedom and empowerment for these forty women. Through solo travel, it was apparent that the women could transgress the structures and roles which influenced and governed their lives. This thesis shows that, through solo travel, the women interviewed found an autonomous and self-determining 'journey of their own'. At the same time, the extent to which this really was a journey of their own was questioned and revealed to be problematic under a feminist/gendered lens. Thus a more appropriate concept of women's solo travel is that it is a 'relative escape'. That is, their journeys, escapes and experiences were always situated relative to the societal expectations and perceptions of home; relative to the gendered perceptions and ideologies of the destination, and relative to the limited spatial freedoms as a result of a socially constructed geography of fear.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department of Tourism, Leisure, Hotel and Sport Management
Griffith Business School
Full Text

‘What happens when the discourses we inhabit contrast strongly with or are in direct conflict with the discourses which swirl around us?’ asks feminist activist and academic Lekkie Hopkins (2009, pp. 75-76). More particularly, how does a life writer interact with the discourses that swirl around her? The advice given in guides on memoir and autobiographical writing creates an illusion that life writers not only have the freedom to write what they like but that, somehow, they have a moral duty to do so. Life writers can ‘challenge our society’s enormous untruthfulness,’ writes David Parker (cited in Helen, 2006, p. 326). Other authors urge life writers to stand by the courage of their convictions and question the status quo to arrive at new answers and a truth that is different from that ‘embedded ideology masquarading as common knowledge’ (Forche & Gerard cited in Helen, 2006, p. 321). Lynne Bloom warns that ‘no matter what their subjects think …nonfiction writers defending the integrity of their work should not…expose their material either to censorship or to consensus’(cited in Helen, 2006, p. 344). However, in contrast to these carefree injunctions to memoirists to be truth-seekers, Drusilla Modjeska acknowledges the difficulties implicit in life writing and warns in her fictionalised biography, Poppy, that ‘there is conformity and dependence in our freedom.’ She refers to a ‘an intellectual freedom [that is] institutionally hobbled, or fashion bound’ (1990, p. 5). The ongoing tension between an espoused freedom of speech and moral duty as a writer to write fearlessly and honestly to create a ‘truth’ that seeks new answers and the intellectual hobbling caused by embedded and fashion bound discourses is the underlying theme of this essay. Despite an initial determination to follow the advice of these life-writing experts, I have found that in producing a fictionalized memoir in Australia today, exposure to a certain degree of intellectual hobbling is an inevitable part of the process and that challenging the status quo embedded in powerful discourses can be a perilous business. The pressure to conform to the consensus, resulting in a significant amount of external and internal censorship, has been difficult to resist.

This thesis consists of a creative component, the first half of a novel, ‘Irresistible Grace’, and an exegesis, ‘Looking back: On writing, travel and the gaze.’ The novel begins in Manchester and centres on Caitlin, an Australian woman in her late twenties, who learns of her partner Pedro’s affair. The revelation stirs a resurgence of grief for her mother, Grace, who died when Caitlin was a child. In a bid to learn more about her mother, Caitlin embarks on a journey to India, where Grace spent the first half of her childhood as an expatriate. In India, Caitlin begins volunteering in a local slum. With the help of a friend, she eventually finds the site of her mother’s home, and in doing so makes the same discovery that her mother made in her voyage there before she died, learning the truth about her roots. Caitlin’s experience in Manchester and voyage to India are interwoven with memories of her childhood and of her father, Dave, her mother, Grace, and her sister, Maggie. It is through these memories that Grace’s own story is told – that of a grieving mother at odds with the world around her who is struggling to make sense of life after the death of her baby. Caitlin’s voyage concludes in the place of her own childhood, Western Australia, where she makes a decision to reunite with Pedro. In the exegesis I explore the journey that I have undertaken in writing this novel, the challenges I faced in doing so, and how these challenges have become entwined with the themes of the story. I explore the themes of abandonment, isolation and forgiveness. I also discuss the unique exchange between traveller and host that occurs through the act of gaze. I draw on the works of Foucault, Maoz, Jordan and Aitchison and Hottola as well as novels by Turner Hospital, de Kretser and Baranay to examine the ways in which traveller and host make sense of the ‘other’ through this interaction and how they can both misinterpret and come to a mutual understanding through the act of gaze.

This thesis aims to examine the little-known works by three Anglo-Sicilian women, written at the end of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century, as expatriate writing. In particular, this study explores the various mechanisms and strategies at play in the representation of the Other and the Self in these texts, in the light of the events preceding and following Italian Unification. I intend to verify how these texts respond to being analysed as a distinct group, and what are the specific roles and functions of expatriate women's works. I consider these three works through an interdisciplinary, comparative approach. This thesis consists of an introduction, three case studies - structured in terms of generic subdivisions - and a conclusion. The Introduction draws the historical, social and cultural context shared by the three case studies. It looks at women's expatriate writing as a genre, as well as a few women's travel texts about Sicily. Chapter one explores Letters from Sicily: Containing Some Account of the Political Events in that Island during the Spring of 1849 (London, 1850) by Mary Charlton Pasqualino. Within the context of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century epistolary writing, this work is read as a text marking the author's transition from a condition as traveller to that as expatriate. Chapter two is devoted to an analysis of Sicilian Ways and Days, by Louise Hamilton Caico (London, 1910). It looks at strategies used by the author to exert her authority as participant-observer in her ethnographic work. This section also analyses Hamilton Caico's photographs of inland Sicily within a selection of iconographic representations of Southern Italy produced by female travellers. Chapter three examines the relationship between history and memory, personal and public account through a close reading of Sicily and England: Political and Social Reminiscences, 1848-1870 (London, 1907) by Tina Scalia Whitaker. It examines the author's search for an Anglo-Italian identity, as well as the issue of the 'authenticity' of Scalia's historical narrative and self-representation. The conclusions briefly look at today's reception of the translation into Italian of the works by Hamilton Caico and Scalia Whitaker. This section also suggests further research on women's expatriate writing about Italy.

This is a study of a group of Swedish travellers, and of the traveller community, a marginalized group named 'tattare', skojare, tavring, knävling, dinglare, resande (Gypsies, pikeys, tinkers, travellers), whose origins and history are unknown to most people. The purpose of the study is to find out what it is like to be a traveller and look at the culture of travellers, in older times and today. I have focused particularly on the women's situation within the culture, in the past and present. The study is based on interviews with 4 persons, from the traveller community, one man and three women. During the interviews other travellers joined and participated in the discussions and the reasoning. My conclusion is that the traveller community is a group, which has been subjected to severe abuse by authorities, but still managed to preserve their culture. The interviewed travelers share a culture, in which women play a prominent role as breadwinners, for the family cohesion and in raising the children. Functions that gives women the role of culture bearers, meaning that it’s through women the culture is carried onwards.

The diploma thesis deals with the analysis of the gender aspects of women travelling and experience of women travellers, who set out to the non-Europe destinations on their own. The thesis is based on in-depth interviews with women travellers and analyze how these journeys are important to them. The thesis tries to point out that women's solo travelling directly effects their biography as well as career and status of these female travellers. Women independent travelling is introduced as the dynamic process, by means of which they acquire or verify the gender power and abilities, applicable to their personal life and work. Using the concepts of feminist theories implemented on women's travelling, I try to show that this type of travelling is affected by history and prefers male travelling, which displaces the individual women's travelling on the edge of the social and scientific interest. This thesis is based on the anthropology of tourism, particularly on the study of backpacking and set the experience of the woman traveller in the frame of the rites of passage. Moreover the thesis contains the analysis of the public and media discourse, focused on the real case of two young women kidnapped in Pakistan. Keywords: anthropology of tourism, women independent travellers, solo travelling, backpacking,...

Although archives hold vast amounts of travel records, these records have been virtually ignored in the archival literature. Thus research is needed on contextualizing them for the various functions archivists perform with such contextual knowledge. Other academic fields have produced much work on the history of travel, but little as yet on the records of travel. Within archival literature, journal articles have been published on documents created as a consequence of travel, but they have seldom been studied within the context of the history of travel. This thesis demonstrates the importance of historical context in the examination of travel records through a case study analysis of the travel records created between 1927 and 1979 by Lillian Beatrice Allen, a University of Manitoba professor, a photographer, and a frequent traveller. This thesis argues that the full value of travel records cannot be obtained if they are studied outside the context of the history of travel and of the particular travellers who created them. Allen’s travel records will be contextualized within the tradition of travellers’ records, and more specifically those of women travellers. By evaluating not just what she says in her travel records, but also how she records them, what types of travel records she keeps, what that says about her, and what that says about travel records and women travellers in general, I hope to demonstrate the value of applying the archival perspective to the history of travel and travel records. Archivists, as those responsible for the care and contextualization of such research tools, are well-placed to play a key role in illuminating the history of travel records and thus provide better archival representations of them and thereby better service to researchers. Also, although archivists have traditionally aimed to be neutral gatekeepers of information, this study of Allen’s travel records demonstrates the effect archivists can have (indeed must have) on the types and amounts of records kept to ensure that valuable sources of information are not lost to future generations.

This paper explores the construction of multicultural identities in the postcolonial world in relation to nonresident Indian women depicted in mainstream cinema. The dissertation traces the distorted representation of Indian women from its colonial and diasporic origins to its contemporary neo-colonial evolution. The analysis of two films, directed by Gurinder Chadha, Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Bride and Prejudice (2004), speaks back to Indian women‟s agency and ownership of multicultural identities. These film texts were chosen as they are both contemporary examples of Indian class, gender and culture in relation to the postmodern concept of multicultural societies. The films are products of formerly colonised people commenting on issues of class, gender and power as seen in Indian diasporic communities in England and the USA.
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

Background: In many developing countries, maternal deaths occur mainly as a result of unsafe abortions, a situation reflecting the inaccessibility of safe abortion services in such countries. In Ethiopia, unsafe abortion accounts for 32% of maternal deaths and almost 60% of gynaecological admissions, and is one of the top ten causes of general hospital admissions. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the views of women about the accessibility of safe abortion services in governmental health centres. Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional descriptive and non-experimental study using structured questionnaires was conducted. 342 women who had received abortion care services in governmental health centres participated. Findings: 46.8% of the participants do not know about the penal code regarding safe abortion care. 52.9% of the participants viewed safe abortion care as inaccessible because there are various and competing factors which make abortion service to be viewed as accessible or inaccessible and these include distance to nearest health centre, the time it takes to receive the service, the cost of the service, and the lack of appropriate skills in the service providers. Conclusion: An improvement in the accessibility of abortion services will prevent deaths resulting from unsafe abortions
Health Studies
M.A. (Public Health)