On being a Black woman ‘Mzungu’ researcher

Abstract

With limited inclusion of Black traveler experiences in tourism scholarship and given that gender and racialization occur across geographies, this article explores the ways in which positionality and embodiment influence a Black diasporic woman researcher’s experience in the cross-cultural context of Livingstone, Zambia. It further explores key player and researcher-participant relationships within the research context, where an autoethnographic approach and the creative analytic practice (CAP) of poetry are used as reflexive practices and to demonstrate the impact of researcher social identities (e.g. race, gender, nationality) on the research process. Aligning with the creative (re)turn in geography scholarship, the use of CAP demonstrates how similar methodologies can provide a more well-rounded view of participant voices, specifically that of Black people informing the production of knowledge. More importantly, the Blackness of diasporic researchers is valued, especially when coupled with mindful intentionality in the approach and assumptions of the research process.

Keywords:

• Black tourism
• Black researcher
• Zambia
• reflexivity
• embodiment
• creative analytic practice
• poetry
• autoethnography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1  African American is an ethnic group label reflecting a Black person with African origins whose ancestors were resettled in the U.S. through the African slave trade between the 16th through 19th centuries (Thornton, Taylor, & Brown, 1999). Because of the interconnectedness between race, cultural heritage, and nationality discussed later in this paper, African American is used in this paper over the term Black American to capture these multiple identities. However, Black is also used in this paper, referring specifically to skin color as an embodied identity, regardless of nationality, created through a process of racialization (Fields & Fields, 2010).

2 This paper is written from the voice of the first author, with support in idea and writing development, from the second and third authors as a reflection of an autoethnographic approach taken within the research (Lapadat, 2017).

3 Zambia’s culture, people, religious denominations, and language are highly diverse as it is an ethnolinguistic melting pot attributed to by more than 70+ languages and tribes (Taylor, 2006).

4 Poetry was selected because of its cultural relevancy; Zambian communities traditionally used poetry to communicate and to transfer knowledge and skills, which can transform people’s lives in a positive manner (Mpolomoka & Banda, 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Clemson University Institute for Parks.