Towards reflexive post-humanism in critical pedagogy: Inclusion of non-human voices in tourism education

Underpinned by the current neoliberal ideologies and market-driven values, tourism education often struggles to sufficiently or meaningfully engage the subaltern (minority groups, the environment and non-human beings) in teaching social justice-related topics. Engaging students in social justice debates has become an increasingly important aspect in developing students’ critical thinking and fostering ethical and responsible citizens of the future. Subscribing to a multi-species livelihood, post-humanism argues for the rights, welfare and agency of ‘Other’ beings in more-than-human relations (Copeland, 2021). As Gula (2021) aptly pointed out, tourism (sector) is an inherent issue of justice, in which non-human entities (flora and fauna) are either ‘conserved’ for a human-centred cosmology or are abused for human consumption or pleasure (Thomsen et al., 2023). This study takes a reflexive post-humanism angle to re-articulate inclusive curriculum through surfacing the often invisible and/or marginalised non-human voices in teaching justice issues in the tourism sector, which was long dominated by anthropocentric views. To illustrate, two case studies implemented in tourism modules on level 4 and level 7 (‘Trophy hunting debate’ and ‘A tale of the hostile urban bench’) were used to exemplify how the inclusion of non-human entities and narratives in teaching social justice can empower strong ecological empathy and stimulate reflexive discussions and critical debates amongst students. It was noted that such unconventional pedagogical practices can disrupt the deep-seated perceptual bias of human-centric views and allow students to cultivate a moral imagination of being and becoming with the often-neglected backdrops of travel, through the lens of the lions and a park bench

A duo-ethnographic tale of solo female researchers’ fieldwork experiences in remote Australia: gender and liminality in academic fieldwork

Academic fieldwork is a crucial component in scientific advancement, knowledge production, and research training. While fieldwork is often reported on its conduct, methods and techniques, the intersection between liminality and gender in the solo fieldwork experience of female scholar has yet been fully scrutinised in tourism research. Adopting a duo-ethnographic methodology and through the use of visual memory-work, this ongoing study explores the experiences and evaluates the effects of entering liminal and masculine tourism spaces on two female scholars conducting solo fieldwork in remote Australia. The study is expected to contribute to theoretical advancement in the areas of gender studies, reflexivity, liminality, and transformative experiences. The study also provides practical implications for institutions and researchers engaged in remote tourism fieldwork

The stories of the unheard: border-crossing, passports, and travel experiences

Airports as borders signify critical thresholds of tourism experiences – arrival and departure. Various levels of mobility rights are bestowed on different passport holders, which create vastly different and controversial encounters (Adey, 2017). Those who rank higher on the hierarchy of passports with the ‘right’ look, accent, religion, and nationalities receive more favourable treatments (Torabian & Mair, 2022), whilst others submitting to onerous, intimidating and sometimes humiliating border-crossing experiences (Villegas, 2015). In this study, airport border is configured as a liminal, ethically paradoxical space, where gateways and barriers, hospitality and hostility, inclusion and exclusion, and mobility and immobility co-exist (Mezzadra & Nelson, 2015). To safeguard sovereignty, dehumanising practices, such as racial stereotyping and risk profiling become normalised at airport border, leaving many negative encounters unnoticed (Stephenson, 2006). Thus, this study aims to unpack the multiplicity of border-crossing experiences and their subsequent effects on travellers’ emotions and memories. Grounded within a critical-constructivist paradigm, this study will employ a qualitative in-depth interview as the methodological approach, collecting memories of contested border-crossing encounters. By engaging the authors’ own experiences at the border, knowledge can be constructed intersubjectively through interactive dialogues between the researchers and the subjects. Theoretically, the recognition of alternative tourist border-crossing experiences contributes to decolonisation of tourism research, by highlighting the importance of border as key touch points in tourists’ journeys. Practically, this study provides timely implications for managing the rapid return of international travel post-pandemic. Tourists undergo emotional, social, physical, and cognitive challenges at borders, necessitating further scholarly attention. Problematising the border space is the first step in surfacing the experiences and challenges of the unheard. Through such understandings, more humane and dignified approaches to border policing could be adapted

Transforming tourism's “field(work) of view”

Academic fieldwork plays a crucial role in scientific advancement, knowledge production, and research training. However, the current investigations into fieldwork often focus on conduct, methods, and techniques, leaving the experience of solo female tourism fieldworkers largely under-explored. Drawing new connections between the intersections of liminality and gender in tourism fieldwork contexts, this study adopts a duo-ethnographic methodology and uses visual memorywork to explore the experiences and evaluate the effects of entering liminal tourism spaces on female scholars conducting solo fieldwork in remote Australia. The study contributes to theoretical advancements in gender studies, reflexivity, liminality, and transformative experiences research. Furthermore, the paper also provides practical implications for institutions and researchers engaged in remote tourism fieldwork

Up close and personal: using high engagement techniques to study Chinese visitors' landscape perceptions

Given the well-documented increase in Chinese outbound tourists, it is no surprise that the Chinese market continues to attract considerable scholarly interest. Previous studies have been primarily quantitative, using methods and instruments administered prior to and/or immediately after visitation. While useful, such approaches may struggle to capture the complex cultural attributes of the Chinese market. Accordingly, this paper proposes the adoption of high-engagement (HE) methods, namely Accompanied Walk and Visitor Employed Photography (VEP), as additional in-situ techniques for studying Chinese visitors. Drawing on fieldwork conducted at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, this paper details the procedures of using HE approaches to collect data. An insider positionality and triangulation of data from multiple techniques are particularly useful for unravelling cultural nuances. The strengths of each method in obtaining quality data from Chinese tourists are discussed, together with strategies for overcoming challenges encountered in the field

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Restore, reorient, and reinvigorate: a localisation and sensemaking approach to crisis recovery

Localisation or locally led recovery has been increasingly recognised as advantageous in strategic crisis management and resilience building. Since 2019, Australia faced two major crises: a climate emergency with swift bushfires and a COVID-19 pandemic with strict international and state border closures. The unprecedented scale of economic impacts and disruptions to mobility prompt us to rethink and refocus on the local relationships, values, and knowledge, as a better, more sustainable, and equitable path to a collective recovery. A case study of the Binna Burra Lodge, one of Australia's longest-established nature-based resort, illustrates the complex effects of back-to-back disasters and the powerful occasion for sensemaking initiatives as part of an innovative localised recovery. This chapter reflects on the localised recovery approach that activates public memories, leverages stakeholder communications (#Bringbackbinnaburra), and strengthens community solidarity and social capital. Sensemaking initiatives enabled a process of situational awareness to understand connections among the people, the place, and the events to navigate the uncertain and complex environment (Maitlis, 2005). Sensemaking actions taped into the stakeholders’ shared meanings of Binna Burra Lodge and place-attached emotions to inform recovery decision-making. The case highlighted the importance of collective sensemaking processes for a locally led recovery. This case also discussed myriad initiatives that generate a shared understanding and coordinated action in volatile and frightening conditions. By mobilising local relationships, Binna Burra enabled meaningful community connections with the land and promoted equitable recovery. Locally led recovery provides a holistic, grounded approach; it brings an opportunity to give stakeholders a voice and return agency over their adaptation to systemic disruptions. However, caution must be practised in terms of information transparency, the enactment of power, and power imbalances among local actors

Contested tourists' border-crossing experiences

Airports as borders signify critical thresholds of tourism experiences – arrival and departure. They are also highly contested spaces that produce vastly different and controversial encounters. Tourists legally entering destination airports have expectations of being treated equally until the first segregating lines for home and foreign passports. Here, various levels of mobility rights are bestowed on different passport holders, which requires intersectional scrutiny (Adey, 2017). The inequality in mobility rights derives from an intersection of factors, including identities, social contexts, and power relations (Mooney, 2018). The hierarchy of passports intersects with appearance, gender, religion, disability/ability, and class, producing unequal treatment at borders (Torabian & Mair, 2022). When entering the West, non-Western tourists become the target of additional questioning, checks, and micro-aggressions despite carrying correct travel documents. These tourists endure stress, overt or covert biases, and a myriad of negative emotions, such as humiliation and intimidation (Villegas, 2015). The current research note presents a conceptual discussion concerning tourists' experiences at airport borders. This is an issue largely under-examined in tourism studies, both conceptually and empirically, due to the following reasons. First, tourism research has long been dominated by Eurocentric ideologies and institutions (Ateljevic, Morgan, & Pritchard, 2007). Theories have predominantly been produced and reinforced by scholars from the West (Wijesinghe, Mura & Culala, 2019), who benefit from greater global mobility by being on the higher end of the hierarchy of passports. Such positionality renders border hostility and inequality of mobility rights invisible to them (Ateljević, 2014; Wijesinghe et al., 2019). Second, the airport border is an assemblage of national security, technological surveillance, and economic interests from both public and private sectors (Mohl, 2019). The interplay of "contradictory flows and desires" (Mohl, 2019, p3) leads to stress and tension. Thus, conducting research at airports presents methodological challenges, such as limited access due to security, compromised data quality from fatigued travellers, and disruption to movements. Third, since the media often over-glamorizes tourism experiences (Bandyopadhyay, 2011), travellers often neglect the discriminative encounters and comply with extensive questioning to gain quick entry, as negativity contradicts the pleasure and fantasies tourism marketing promises. This research attends to the recent call for the decolonization of tourism scholarship, especially the Anglo-Western-centric knowledge, and surfaces the under-represented voices (Yang & Ong, 2020; Chambers & Buzinde, 2015). Neo-colonial domination goes beyond the colonizer's political and economic dominance over colonized (Cywiński, 2015). Tourism still inherits colonial mindsets and practices for the privileged (McCabe & Diekmann, 2015). This study focuses on the unequal mobility rights for tourists from different regions (Torabian & Mair, 2022), a prime yet understudied example of such a colonial mindset

Looking into the future through the past: a comprehensive review of managing tourism in World Heritage Sites (1989-2019)

World Heritage Sites (WHSs) have been increasingly the subject of tourism research over the past three decades. There have been numerous studies of tourism in particular WHSs, some research that compares multiple WHSs, and occasional reviews that focus on particular regions, topics, or issues. Yet no comprehensive review of academic research on tourism and WHSs has been conducted to synthesize the research effort. In response, this study adopts a meta-analysis approach, reviewing 374 research papers, that examine tourism and WHSs. Preliminary findings highlight the focus of research on particular areas and types, such as Natural WHSs in Australia; primary quantitative data predominately collected through questionnaires; and themes relating to visitor, management, and stakeholder aspects. If we can access and understand the body of knowledge that has been generated by hundreds of studies of tourism and WHSs, we can be proactive to build on this knowledge and address the gaps that are important for the sustainable future of WHSs, and the tourism that occurs within these precious places

A city with no seat: rethinking hospitality in hostile urban landscapes

Urban landscape plays a prominent role in a city’s expression of hospitality, connectivity, and inclusivity. Yet, cities and destinations have witnessed an increasing number of hostile designs that aim to prevent certain social behaviours and marginalise vulnerable groups such as the homeless, the disabled, migrants, and the Indigenous. In this study, we explore the presence and consumption of the “bench” as a representative hostile urban landscape where interactional tension between hospitality and exclusion occurs. This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with migrant food delivery workers in Brisbane, Australia. We employ critical socio-spatial theory to explore the social and spatial tension between platform workers and urban landscape. We argue the importance of hospitality in problematizing how urban design discourses have been framed by power and punitive mentality. This study calls for more scholarly attention to reposition the concept of hospitality that allows cities to inspire social interactions, genuine care, and meaningful connectivity. This is particularly important as we move into the ‘next normal’ which calls for physical distancing in public spaces as a result of COVID-19