“Women cannot lead”: empowering women through cultural tourism in Botswana

Abstract

To rebalance the safari-tourism led tourism development policies in Botswana, the government has initiated a community-based cultural tourism policy, providing opportunities for women to become leaders and entrepreneurs. After reviewing the multifaceted, deeply contextualized and contested concept of women's empowerment, this paper examines perceptions of empowerment in Botswana and how far villagers felt that the new tourism policy has facilitated female agency and opportunity. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with female and male key informants in villages in southern Botswana. The new policy was found to have contributed significantly to a sense of female empowerment expressed in terms of freedom from economic dependency on men and society, and from depravity, emptiness and familial dependency. Women have progressed from passive involvement to active participation in culture-related tourism ventures. They also experienced vocational education but deferred formal educational opportunities to their offspring. Men were seen as facilitators and partners in women's involvement in tourism. However, barriers remain, including lack of startup capital, low levels of education, centralized control of protected tourism sites and low potential earnings. Ways are suggested to enhance the objectives and policies for women's participation in tourism in Botswana and other developing countries.

``女性不能领导"：在博兹瓦纳通过文化旅游使女性独立

为了再平衡博兹瓦纳旅游业与旅游发展政策，当地政府发起了一个基于文化旅游政策的团体，为女性提供一个能够成为领导者和企业家的机会。在回顾女性全面、深入和有争议的独立自主后，这篇文章探索了博兹瓦纳当地对自主的理解，以及乡村人民如何看待新的旅游政策对女性代理商和机会的刺激作用。通过对南博兹瓦纳乡村的女性和男性主要知情者的十五个访谈式采访发现，新政策对女性自主有重要的贡献，表现在女性从经济上依靠男性和社会、堕落和无知中以及作为家庭附属品中解脱出来，获得自由。女性已经逐渐从消极的参与转变为积极地参与到与文化相关的旅游活动中。她们也受到了职业培训，但是推迟了她们后代正式接受教育的机会。男性在女性参与旅游业的活动中被视为促进者和伙伴。然而阻碍仍然存在，包括缺少启动资金，教育水平底下，保护旅游景点的集中控制和低水平的潜在收入。这里有一些方法可以用来可以加强博兹瓦纳或者其他发展中国家的女性在旅游业的参与度的目标和政策。

Keywords:

• empowerment
• cultural tourism
• tourism policy
• women's participation
• poverty
• Botswana

关键词:

• 环境
• 文化旅游业
• 旅游政策
• 女性的参与
• 贫穷
• 博兹瓦纳

Acknowledgements

The study was partially supported by funds from Office of Research and Development and the International Tourism Research Centre at the University of Botswana. The authors would like to thank Bernard Lane and Bill Bramwell, co-editors of this journal for their encouraging responses and observations during the review process.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Naomi Moswete

Naomi Moswete is a senior lecturer in the Department of Environmental Science, University of Botswana. Her research interests include tourism as a strategy for rural development, community-based tourism, trans-frontier park-based tourism, community conservation, heritage resource management and gender-based empowerment via tourism in Africa and beyond.

Gary Lacey

Gary Lacey is a teaching associate in tourism and events management at La Trobe University, Australia and an adjunct lecturer with the Graduate Tourism Program at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the liaison contact for Monash's Australia and International Tourism Research Unit and the International Tourism Research Centre at the University of Botswana. His main research interests are in poverty alleviation and local empowerment, especially within sub-Saharan Africa.