Tourism memories – a collaborative reflection on inclusion and exclusion

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to explore how people’s differentiated privileged and marginalised positions in society create instances of inclusion and exclusion in tourism. Eight authors utilised their diverse disciplinary and theoretical bases to engage in individual autoethnography and collaborative reflections of their personal experiences of being tourists and hosts. Through our Western and non-Western, White and non-White experiences, we reveal experiences from a multitude of perspectives, and problematise the dominant White racial frame. The methodology illustrates unquestioned privileges and feelings of discomfort when personally faced with exclusionary practices and creates an understanding of how individuals have different experiences of enchantment and the tourist gaze. The experience of marginalisation is serial and dialectical, which illustrates the complexity of tourism. The paper contributes to an enhanced and multifaceted understanding of tourism experiences and proposes measures to reveal issues of exclusion. Also, the use of autoethnography and collaborative reflection as methodological tools provide opportunities for researchers and practitioners to engage in reflexive conversation on discriminatory practices, and how they hinder certain individuals and groups from enjoying tourism products and services.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism experiences
• privileged positions: White racial frame
• autoethnography
• critical tourism

Introduction

The coloniality of power in tourism, with its ‘White, male and western’ epistemology is increasingly challenged (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015; Wijesinghe, 2020). In addition to the criticism of who has the opportunity to travel (Buhalis, 2022), the debate is also about who plans, develops and controls tourism, and who produces knowledge (Echtner & Prasad, 2003; Wijesinghe, 2020; Winter, 2009). Critical marketing and tourism scholars highlight the importance of understanding how patterns of consumption and tourism are inherently embedded in structures of privilege, which includes and excludes certain individuals and groups (Bianchi, 2009; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018; Johns & Davey, 2021). For instance, in the intersection between consumer culture theory and marketing, Rokka (2021, p. 120) claims that social and cultural dynamics ‘reproduce discrimination, marginalisation, and unequal treatment of people of different colour, gender, age, nationality, and class’. Similarly, Johns and Davey (2021) identify a shift of perspectives in service marketing towards experiences of vulnerability, acknowledging inequalities in social and service systems. In critical and sustainable tourism studies, established thinking is challenged through informed analysis that provides understanding of multiple worldviews, reveals unequal power relations and thereby contributes to political insights (Bramwell & Lane, 2014; Mura & Wijesinghe, 2021). Hage (2000) and Mawani (2004) point out that tourism often acts as a vehicle for exotification of minority cultures as some tourism experiences create or reinvigorate prejudice and uphold hierarchies of privilege, which stem from colonialism. To tackle this, scholars advocate the use of feminist, postcolonial and other critical theories, along with engagement in discussions on power relations, othering, systematic oppression and lop-sided representation connected to gender and race (Ateljevic, 2011; Ateljevic et al., 2005; Bianchi, 2009). Jamerson (2016) specifically asserts that researchers must acknowledge ‘transnational inequalities’ (p. 1041) as a result of the international tourism industry, and that there is a need for greater racial awareness amongst scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how people’s differentiated privileged and marginalised positions in society create instances of inclusion and exclusion in tourism. Privileged status refers to unquestioned social norms, values, images and experiences that are most pervasive and representative in a given culture and context (Goodman, 2011), while a marginalised position is the result of lack of power in society (Abdullah et al., 2022).

In this empirically based study, the eight contributors, with their diverse disciplinary and theoretical bases, as well as ethnic, racial and national backgrounds took a starting point in their own lived experiences of tourism encounters, as either tourists or hosts, in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Using autoethnography and collaborative reflection as analytical, interdisciplinary methods, we engaged in sessions of individual and collective interrogation. The aim was to transcend a disciplinary and academic dialogue and move into a transformative conversation that highlighted our respective embeddedness in structures of privilege and marginalisation surrounding tourism. Using these methods, enabled understanding of the emotional dimension of tourism encounters. The reflexive interrogation of experienced discomfort (e.g. shame) makes researchers aware of the power inequalities inherently embedded in encounters between the tourist and the other (e.g. hosts) (Tucker, 2009). This is of importance since Western knowledge systems dominate the knowledge creation in mainstream tourism studies, legitimising the ideologies of dominant groups (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015; Morgan et al., 2018).

We found privileges and marginalisation in connection to race (as a system of oppression), nationality (in terms of which passports you are in possession of) and ethnicity (as shared kinship and culture). These categories, together with other social categories such as class, sexuality or religion, intersect and affect whether, to what extent, and how people can travel (Crenshaw, 2017; Scheyvens & Biddulph, 2018; Ying et al., 2016), and they reinforce processes of othering and exotification (Jamerson, 2016). Closely related to these categories are the ‘tourist gaze’, a visual practice that mirrors the privilege of the eye (Urry, 1990), racial framing, the organisation of social reality into structural and ideological processes (Feagin, 2010; Ortega & Feagin, 2016) and enchantment, the inexplicable, emotionally engaging experience that shape tourists’s attitudes, discourses and relationships (Cravatte & Chabloz, 2008; Jenkins, 2000). Analysing these concepts in relation to the group’s experiences, we found instances of marginalisation being a serial and dialectical process, where prejudice and privilege shape tourism experiences.

Theoretical and conceptual orientation

Race, nationality and ethnicity

Race is a socially constructed category with real consequences and has historically been used as a mechanism of power, creating hierarchies of privileges (Lentin, 2015; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). It is intrinsically linked to physical, visible differences between humans, which become markers of group belonging and correspond to the system of racism (Lentin, 2020; Osanami Törngren & Suyemoto, 2022). In other words, race is not an objective category related simply to what is visible such as skin colour. Visual cues are an undeniable part of how we perceive others and how we are perceived by others (Johnson et al., 2015). However, what we consider racially visible is constantly changing, despite individual phenotypes being unchanging (Song, 2020). How racial groups are formed and reformed, and how race is deployed in different contexts is not uniform, and the markers chosen to maintain exclusion of certain groups of people is determined in different historical and social contexts (Daynes & Lee, 2008; McEachrane, 2014; Osanami Törngren & Suyemoto, 2022). This is why, although race functions similarly across different contexts as a tool to maintain privilege and uneven power relations, race is not manifested in the same way across contexts, given different histories and demographic compositions. Our racial belonging affects our lives negatively and positively because of the structure of power, privilege and oppression that are attached to various visible cues in different contexts (Osanami Törngren & Suyemoto, 2022). There are experiences of power imbalances due to access to mobility, but also because of influences from space and time, such as in current or former military, politically and/or religiously unstable regions (Koopmans, 2010; Shepherd et al., 2020). Depending on context, experiences of advantage and disadvantage can arise, as can feelings of power and shame (Shepherd et al., 2020). When the White majority or those in privileged positions are faced with experiences that may expose their advantages over marginalised group of people, feelings of shame can turn into denial and evasion of power (Goldberg, 2015), i.e. ‘White fragility’ (DiAngelo, 2018) and ‘White innocence’ (Wekker, 2016). The intersection between race and tourism has long been neglected in tourism research, despite the dominant racial narrative and connection to the experience of otherness (Jamerson, 2016; Philipp, 1994). Philipp (1994), for example, highlights how tourism studies historically have neglected to investigate tourism preferences of groups most often identified with racial discrimination, and how their tourism experiences may be shaped by instances of discrimination.

Nationality is simply a place of birth that individuals may or may not identify with. Nationality can, but not always, determine which citizenships you can acquire, which in turn affect the degrees of tourism mobility you may enjoy using your passports. The right to travel is a prerequisite for international tourism, but mobility is limited by racism and xenophobia. Restrictive border controls are established, managed and monitored as a consequence of past colonial orders, geopolitical changes and governance systems (Bianchi et al., 2020). Also, the nationality of visitors can be a source for stereotypification. Generalised stereotypes of specific nationalities, for example, affect how local actors and other visitors perceive individuals, and are often built on the idea that their characteristics, behaviours and morals are somehow different from your own (Pizam & Sussmann, 1995). These stereotypes are also further reinforced through tourism marketing material, general media and to some extent tourism research, where nationality is used as the sole variable for marking difference (Pizam & Sussmann, 1995).

Ethnicity is also a socially constructed concept of relevance, however, the fundamental difference between race and ethnicity is in its function related to systemic power. While race is a categorisation created to maintain the power inequality, ethnicity is based on one’s cultural heritage and origin, e.g. the cultural contexts of one's upbringing. Even though discrimination based on ethnicity does occur, ethnic identity and categorisations are primarily defined by the individuals within the group (Jenkins, 2000). Ethnic identity and categorisation can therefore be optional (Waters, 1990), symbolic (Gans, 1979) and/or situational (Okamura, 1981). Ethnicity characterised by cultural affiliations are not inherently related to racialisation, the process where individuals become categorised and socialised according to different socially constructed ideas, which build racial structures and hierarchies (Markus, 2008). At the same time, in different contexts, especially in Europe, ethnicity, and even nationality can be confounded with race. When issues of race, ethnicity and nationality are applied solely to ‘the other’, and experiences of racism and oppression as non-White ‘immigrants’ in the West are overlooked, so are the experiences of being White in the West or black/Asian in different African and Asian contexts. Race, ethnicity and nationality thus reinforce the dominance of the privileged group, which maintains power hierarchies (Osanami Törngren & Suyemoto, 2022).

Gaze, racial framing and enchantment

There are several theoretical concepts that are overarching in understanding inclusionary and exclusionary practices, such as the concepts of gaze and frame. In tourism studies, Urry (1990) conceptualised gaze as a visual practice that mirrors the privilege of the eye from Western societies. Later, Urry and Larsen (2011) added that, among others (tourists and locals), gazing is relational and communal, negotiating what and how we see; the gaze is dependent on the quality of social relations and the place itself. The relations means that ‘the eyes of the gazers and gazees are likely to meet’ (Larsen, 2014, p. 308, italics in original). Resistance and power take form in the hosts’ ‘local gaze’ and the ‘mutual gaze’ (Maoz, 2006) between them and the tourists, between tourists and with other guests and brokers (Urry & Larsen, 2011). Larsen (2014) further stresses the importance of research on the gazes of the rising number of non-Western tourists since the focus on Western tourists has been predominant for too long. Similarly, Jamerson (2016) problematises the dominance of a White male gaze which leaves little room for the gazes of minorities.

Gaze is closely related to the concept of frames, which organise social reality and construct meanings, at the same time connecting individual interpretations to broader structural and ideological processes. Racial privileges are fundamental in many contexts across the world, where there is a globalised understanding that Whites head up the racial hierarchy, thus establishing the White racial frame as normal (Feagin, 2010). This latter consists of images that include not only pro-White ideologies that privilege Whites but also sets of subframes that denigrate non-Whites with racialised stereotypes, sentiments and language use (Feagin, 2010; Ortega & Feagin, 2016).

Gaze within tourism affect if and how we are enchanted by a place, for example, that it feels authentic. Enchantment is rooted in understanding and experiences of the world which is above the material, the visible or the explainable (Jenkins, 2000). Enchantment can be understood as emotionally engaging experiences, which shape ‘the social relations, the expectations, the attitudes and the discourses of the tourists’ (Cravatte & Chabloz, 2008, p. 233). Therefore, subjective experiences become central in the idea of enchantment. However, Bærenholdt (2016, p. 394) points out that the subjective experience of ‘my enchantment’ is less important than the enchantment of the ‘place’, because it is the ‘multiple realities in places’ complex histories, geographies, cultures, architecture, and so on’ that forms the subjective experience. Therefore, what we get enchanted by is relevant in understanding our relative privilege and how we connect with the place through our gaze and frames.

Methodology

We are an interdisciplinary and international research team engaged in a project exploring the role of tourism in multicultural societies that brings together expertise in design, marketing, ethnic and racial studies, sociology, psychology and computer science. The project as a whole addresses whether and how the plurality of places and destinations is communicated, represented and experienced. As part of building a common understanding and contributing to knowledge development regarding inclusionary and exclusionary tendencies in tourism the research team engaged in individual autoethnographic writing and collaborative reflection on our own experiences of being tourists and acting hosts. Both methods are forms of methodological reflexivity, established in critical tourism studies (Ateljevic et al., 2005; Fleming & Fullagar, 2007; Shepherd et al., 2020), and commonly practised in some of the authors’ home disciplines (e.g. ethnic and racial studies, and design). Reflexivity partly aims to make visible the embodiment, individual life histories, active influence and subjectivity of researchers in the research process. This requires acknowledging how your own perspectives and power relations in society influence your experiences as well as the analysis of tourism, and implies that reflection needs to be focused inwards as well as outwards (Ateljevic et al., 2005; Morgan et al., 2018).

Reflecting on your own embodied experiences can create understanding of the tourism experience as subjective phenomena, give an insider perspective, and allow for deep exploration of lived ‘experiences of individuals within specific contexts’ (Cai & McKenna, 2023, p. 5). Thus, it is used by researchers to gain understanding of themselves, their work (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2004; Patterson, 2010) and other tourism actors (Aspara & Tikkanen, 2017; Holbrook, 1997; Wallendorf & Brucks, 1993).

Collaborative reflexivity conducted in research teams that are diverse in their constellation also set the scene for interpretations being shaped by multiple perspectives in processes that can ‘produce both consensus and conflict’ (Morgan, 2007, p. 72; Shepherd et al., 2020). Our collaborative reflection functioned as an analytical tool, revealing behaviours and reactions in tourism that are embedded in layers of privilege and how this creates instances of inclusion and exclusion. This peer inquiry enables deeper and critical exploration of one's own experiences, positionality and responsibilities, as well as it can provide alternative readings and has the potential to result in transformative dialogue (Brown et al., 1999; Cai & McKenna, 2023; Shepherd et al., 2020). Furthermore, assembling stories from researchers with different positionalities makes visible how individual touristic experiences are shaped by your own and other people's understanding of race, ethnicity and nationality (Shepherd et al., 2020).

Individual writing and three reflective sessions

The process was initiated with eight members of the research team receiving a number of questions crafted by two of the lead authors: type of visit, expectations before the experience, differences between expectations and actual experience, reason for choosing the specific place for a visit, observations made and reflections. The questions guided each person as they individually wrote down memories of specific tourism experiences where they acted as tourists or hosts; a way of remembering and reflecting through the act of writing (Fleming & Fullagar, 2007), and a preparation for the coming collaborative sessions.

Three collaborative introspective sessions were then held online and a visual and digital mind-mapping tool was used to write down what was said and make categorisations. The sessions were also sound-recorded and transcribed. In the first session, we engaged in collaborative reflection and shared thoughts on inclusion and exclusion in regards to our colleagues’ tourism memories. The sharing was done in a round-table presentation format, in which all got about equal amount of time to speak, and where we mainly pointed out aspects seen as interesting in each other's presentations. This first session aided in revealing and problematising our position in the world (Ateljevic et al., 2005) in relation to national, cultural and racial differences. It created an understanding of our own relative privilege and, in turn, prejudice and oppression that we face in our lives as individuals, how these depend on the social categories and identities that we are part of and how this creates instances of inclusion and exclusion in tourism. In the two subsequent sessions, we discussed each other’s experiences and tried to identify key themes. As most reflective processes that engage people with different positionalities, the discussion contained entanglements, tensions and conflict, particularly around concepts such as gaze, authenticity and enchantment. These were connected to our different personal feelings and embeddedness in the dominant culture, as this affects the experiences and understandings of places we visit. The entanglements proved too complex to resolve during the sessions, exemplifying the difficulty in transdisciplinary research to be truly open to the foundations and functions of other disciplines and worldviews (Guimarães et al., 2019). However, importantly they also revealed assumptions, values, ontological stances and hierarchies linked to our differentiated positionings in academia (Ateljevic et al., 2005), and our respective interpretations of race, nationality and ethnicity.

It was decided that the first three authors, all coming from different fields (marketing, design, and ethnic and racial studies) would continue the analysis in a smaller group-constellation, also adding a theoretical framework based primarily on the empirical material. Independently and collectively, they further influenced the composition of the theoretical framework and re-analysed the transcribed material and the digital mind-maps. The manuscript was shared and discussed with the larger group on two occasions (one article seminar and an email round where all were requested to read and comment). The full group collectively agreed that all should be listed as co-authors.

The positions of the researchers

The ways we as individuals practise tourism are related to our privileged and/or oppressed social position(s). All except Lillian who resides in Kenya, live in the Southern and Western parts of Sweden. Helena, Eva Maria, Emma and Sofia identify as White and ‘Swedish’. Thomas, with parents from Sweden and Austria, identifies himself as a citizen of the world with a European value set. Caroline, with origin in the US also has citizenship and family ties in Sweden. They are all racialised as White in contexts inside and outside of Sweden, and they all possess Swedish passports and have extensive travel experience. Lillian, Caroline and Sayaka have different experiences of marginalisation and relative privileges compared to the aforementioned project members. Lillian identifies herself as Black with considerable global travel experience, Caroline as White and Sayaka as Asian. While Lillian and Sayaka are racialised as non-White foreigner and immigrant in the Western context, Caroline’s Whiteness and also her Swedish passport, enables her to navigate Western spaces without being questioned. Lillian and Sayaka have different access to privileges in tourism, having Kenyan and Japanese passports, respectively. Based on these positionalities, our vantage points are diverse and become visible in tourism experiences of inclusion and exclusion.

Our memories, reflections and entanglements

Privileged and marginalised gazes and positions

During the three reflective sessions, and subsequent analysis, we engaged in discussions on what gaze in tourism means, how it is coloured by our own positionality and embedded differently in the expectations of different cultures. Gaze happens in interaction between people, and it is not only something that you see places and other people through, but you are also seen through the gaze of others (Maoz, 2006; Urry & Larsen, 2011). Thus, analysing gaze is important for understanding who is seen (gazed at) and how people (including ourselves) are seen (gazed upon). Gazing reflects the process of drawing boundaries based on what is visible, who belongs and who does not, and it inevitably affects the way we engage in tourism.

Gaze is partly based on what is visible, which perpetuates the system of racism (Lentin, 2020). Sayaka, as non-White but privileged, consciously try to avoid the behaviour of gazing at others for differences:

I don’t consciously look at others and think I want to find something different because I know that I am often looked at, what I do is looked at, my place is looked at through the gaze of ‘what are the differences’.

For some of us, who are constantly navigating between the majority and minority context, being both privileged and marginalised, gaze was understood as the negotiation of what privileges you possess, or do not possess, in different contexts. We can see how gaze is influenced by processes of racial framing (Feagin, 2010; Ortega & Feagin, 2016) in Sayaka’s experiences of being Japanese in places that are marked by history (Koopmans, 2010; Shepherd et al., 2020). This revealed that despite her racial background being constant, the meaning of the racial belonging shifts from the coloniser to the colonised, and different gazes shifts her position between privileged and marginalised: ‘For me visiting Seoul, Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor, I would embody my history and my position, privileges and disadvantages, multiplicity’. Similarly, Lillian was the only Black participant in a guided tour with otherwise mainly White conference guests in South Africa, when she was asked by local residents why she looked like them but could not understand their ethnic language: ‘That is the experience of a tour in South Africa for me. Marked differences of being ‘Black’ and ‘Black’. Feeling out of place all of a sudden’. In the reflexive conversation, Lillian and Sayaka often shared similar perspectives because their experiences came in contrast to the White experiences. However, their experiences were also distinctly different because of their different racial, ethnic and national origin. Lillian's recurring experiences of discriminatory treatment at airports reveal a gaze from the dominant culture perspective, resulting in experiences of marginalisation due to racism, xenophobia, past colonial orders (Bianchi et al., 2020) and stereotypification (Pizam & Sussmann, 1995):

So immediately when I present my papers there is a list of questions. ‘Where are you going, when are you coming back, what are you going to do?’ – which is usually not the case with other travellers, who are not of the same colour as I am. […] When they look at your passport, they are actually able to see that you have a stable income in your own country, so you have no reason to be an illegal immigrant in another country.

On the contrary, Sayaka’s experiences are often characterised by the positive recognition of other persons of colour in a White tourism space; the shared non-White gaze. For example, a black Kenyan female guide with a refugee background recognised Sayaka in a crowd of White colleagues on a city walk tour in Berlin. The guide asked a question about how many people did research on racism and Sayaka’s colleagues pointed to Sayaka. ‘Of course, and this is not a question for you to answer’, the guide said, and turned to the White colleagues and asked: ‘What do you do to tackle racism?’ This was a moment of connection, both being non-White persons in a White European space, even though with different migration histories. Another example was at the airport in Amsterdam, where a Black male security guard casually asked Sayaka where she was going home to, and when she answered Sweden the guard asked back ‘How’s racism treating you in Sweden?’ They connected because of others’ gazes on them. Lillian and Sayaka’s experiences reflect the entanglement of race and ethnicity; that their Japanese and Kenyan identity can be hidden or manifested situationally, by choice and by force, and that the reveal of our ethnic background can shift our privilege (Gans, 1979; Okamura, 1981, Waters, 1990).

Eva Maria and Helena’s experiences of acting as hosts for two Kenyan visitors in Sweden made clear an embeddedness in the dominant culture, but at the same time making visible the experiences and the gazes from the marginalised positions of the visitors. Eva Maria’s moments of realisation of her privileges became evident in two encounters to racism, being the privileged host.

There were uncomfortable moments that I encountered, incidents that I would not notice if I were not with them. […] While I was talking with them about the city square and the statue of Jonas Alströmer, a man stopped and said in Swedish that we also have a prison in Alingsås, and pointed somewhere. I know we don't have a prison. […] I then asked myself ‘What is this?’.

When we went to a shop, I took a number tab and my Kenyan friend didn't realise I had, I think, so he asked a guy who works there without waiting in-line. The guy dismissed him quite abruptly, in a way that I felt he wouldn’t have done to me, and said he would serve number four first. ‘But we have number three’, I said, ‘I'm with them’. My friend apologised but still the staff was quite unfriendly.

Another example is Helena going to an exhibition in Gothenburg that highlighted the history of colonialism. Exploration of Sweden's colonial history brought an uncomfortable past into the present and it made her own privileged positions obvious when she experienced them together with African guests.

We came across an exhibition called ‘Omänskligt’ (Inhuman) that dealt with the history of racial biology in Sweden. I translated everything about skull measurements and grave lootings. There was also a part dealing with colonialism, including a small section on Sweden’s part in it. […] One of my guests mentioned several times that he appreciated this particular exhibition and spoke of the importance of presenting these types of stories and not trying to hide them, as it is important that people are reminded. However, it left me feeling embarrassed – as I had to read it out – partly by the fact that I know so little about the issue and because Sweden had a role in it.

Through their experiences of interacting in a White Swedish space that often exclude non-White bodies, Helena and Eva Maria became aware of the marginalised gaze and the White racial framing, which normalise and include their own presence. Their experiences of showing Sweden to Kenyan visitors made the gazes of individuals in marginalised positions visible to them. Through this, Sweden's colonial history brought an uncomfortable past into the present and it made their own privileged positions obvious (DiAngelo, 2018). They embodied the coloniser who excluded persons that shared the same background as the Kenyan guides. Furthermore, the visit gave insight into the gazes of other Swedes. This happened through questionable comments with racist undertones that reveal processes of generalisation and stereotypification on behalf of local residents (Pizam & Sussmann, 1995) where, for example, the visitors were ascribed criminal behaviour. All in all, Helena and Eva Maria’s experiences of power imbalances created emotions of discomfort and shame, a moment to confront their own White privilege (DiAngelo, 2018; Shepherd et al., 2020).

The discomfort, embarrassment and the questions arising as we become aware of our own privilege and thus others’ non-privilege is also apparent below. The quote is an example of taking part in guided tours where spaces are provided specifically for the privileged tourists to gaze into ‘marginalised’ city areas. Emma has attended several such tours in underserved city areas. She learned about the situations for the locals living there, but:

… in most of these areas we had quite limited interactions with the residents or the locals. And there was a bit of a feeling that we were there to ‘observe’ them, creating an ‘us’ and ‘them’ feeling.

Another example of facing the expected gaze and one’s own privilege can be seen in Caroline’s experience. The tourism space, which is marginalised in its nature was created through the gaze of the privileged, offering enchantment – what the privileged ‘expect’ to see (Cravatte & Chabloz, 2008).

I went to Mexico with my parents when I was about 15 […] On the way back, we took one of these massive coaches. There were probably 60 people and we drove through a very impoverished area. […] When we got off the bus, the guide – who was Mexican – was like ‘Yeah, but you guys love to see stuff like that’. […] It made me feel very guilty and I think it furthered my dislike of tours in general.

The examples above shift the gaze and make those with relative privileges aware of how they are seen and racially framed through others’ gazes. Despite their own implicit awareness of their privileges, it produces uneasiness in situations where they understand how others gaze at them as the eyes of the gazers and gazees meet (Larsen, 2014). The lack of interaction with the people in the area that Emma visited led to the feeling that ‘we’, the privileged, were there to cast our gaze on ‘them’, the marginalised, whilst Caroline experienced guilt in the interaction with the guide. Discomfort and insecurity of different gazes can also crystalise when the space is not framed as a tourism space. Both Sofia and Thomas shared their encounters with local residents. However, when the power relation is not equal, in this case one being a White European tourist and the other a local resident having a completely different living standard, the positions as gazers and gazees become apparent. Thomas travelled to Cuba and felt both discomfort due to his privilege and connections with a coffee worker:

Enchantment is when you connect with an individual. I am privileged, educated and can fly everywhere in the world, and I am in Cuba out of nowhere, I meet a person growing coffee beans […] and I feel a human connection with this person who has nothing in common with me. This kind of enchantment.

Similarly, Sofia met a man in the Atlas mountains and felt both excitement of the encounter and discomfort when she felt he gave her more than she expected:

He found us in the Atlas Mountains and convinced us to come to his village and show us around. It was a fantastic experience because we had no expectations. […] What was I supposed to do with this kind man, who had shown us around and taken us home for a cup of tea in his little super-poor earthen house? What was I supposed to give? When we did give him money, I didn't get a reaction. Neither happy nor disappointed. It was just super-neutral. I still think and reflect upon that. Was that wrong, was that too little or too much?

Sofia’s experience and the struggle to decide whether she should pay the guide or not reflects the resistance and power, which forms the hosts’ ‘local gaze’ and the ‘mutual gaze’ (Maoz, 2006), meaning the unspoken expected gazes that were cast towards both Sofia and the local guide.

Entanglements and tensions

Entanglements and tensions emerged in the reflexive conversation and came from our emotions and personal understanding. However, they also derived from our different understandings of the concepts authenticity, enchantment and gaze. Gaze was understood as ‘reflexivity’, ‘role playing’, ‘how you have been disciplined and trained’ or ‘how you interpret what you are experiencing through your existing knowledge’. There were also different ideas about how and whether gaze is flexible, how gaze is connected to the physical space, and how our interpretations are based on internalisation of what is expected in a space. Enchantment was understood as diverse emotions in connection to expectation, surprise, admiration or a desire for seeking what feels ‘real’. Reflecting on our memories, especially in the second session, gave rise to entanglements and tensions due to our different positions (Shepherd et al., 2020), varying levels of privilege and thereby different interpretations of tourism experiences. Tensions that emerged when we touched upon the concepts of authenticity and enchantment are exemplified below:

-	I said that going to Canary Island is an authentic experience for me but none of you would say that it’s authentic.
-	It’s an authentic charter experience.
-	It’s an authentic experience for me.             //
-	For me authenticity is influenced by subjectivity. If I go to New York, I will be looking for the Empire State building, the things that I have seen in films. I will look out for yellow cabs and traffic jams.
-	That would be the authentic tourists’ gaze. You as a tourist look for things that you want. It’s kept there, they keep the yellow cabs in order for the tourists to see them.
-	From your perspective this is not authentic but for her it is.

Here one's description of a fairy tale feeling, where things that you have seen in films and read about in books unfold in front of you, which enchant you and provide an authentic experience. By another, the experience was deemed as staged and thus not genuinely authentic. This entanglement can however also be placed in relation to the privileged position. If you have been to so many different places that you are no longer enchanted, the experience becomes flat and inauthentic. An authentic experience is for the privileged about ‘getting there before the tourists get there’, or being part of something extraordinary or extreme that will never happen again, like climbing up a mountain.

For marginalised individuals in a given context, what the privileged dominant gaze would dismiss as stereotypical, can be authentic because these acts or scenes do not exist in their own context. This raises questions about who defines what a ‘tourist trap’ is. Some of us, who still feel excluded from well-known tourist spots, experience seeing iconic monuments or being in a space normally occupied by White bodies as a special place of interaction, a feeling of getting close to being included, while those who are normally included in these spaces do not reflect on how their framing and gaze are normalised.

Moreover, the feeling of enchantment and excitement is affected by the fact that tourism experiences usually involve temporality. The emotions of discomfort during visits to disadvantaged areas are interestingly also connected to feelings of admiration and enchantment (Cravatte & Chabloz, 2008; Jenkins, 2000) of the positive things happening there. Taking part in something ‘different’ becomes a contrast between your own privileged position to which you can safely return, and the ‘others’ and their marginalised position (Ateljevic et al., 2005; Jamerson, 2016). There lies, for example, a privilege in being comfortably detached from the place, and thus having the possibility of stepping back and not being included in the everyday reality of the place. These encounters, however, can quickly turn to discomfort when we realise how our gaze is full of privilege.

Concluding remarks

The tourism memories discussed in this paper exemplify how our relative privileges and marginalisation influence the way we experience tourism in a globalised world, and they make practices of inclusion and exclusion in tourism visible. Our different positionalities and subjective experiences produce multiple interpretations and understandings of places (Bærenholdt, 2016). Thus, the combination of Western and non-Western, and White and non-White perspectives contributes to an important understanding of both sides, as requested by Jamerson (2016), and it questions the White racial frame as normal, as called for by Feagin (2010).

The memories further point towards the lingering connection between discomfort and enchantment, and how tourism experiences are continuously formed by White and Eurocentric frames (Tucker, 2009), but also from privileged positions across race, nationality and ethnicity. Individuals are, as some of the contributors pointed out, ‘trained’ and ‘disciplined’ to experience something that is different or out of the ordinary. Low levels of awareness regarding our own privileges in relation to others non-privilege ignites feelings of shame, but at the same time, continued low levels enable history to repeat itself, for instance through continued practices of producing and consuming tours to disadvantaged areas. Experiencing such tours may provide opportunities for reflection, and increased awareness for the individual, although they do also uphold the systems of privilege.

From a traditional perspective, tourism is inherently exclusive and packaged, lacking ethics and multiplicity (Bianchi, 2009; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018; Johns & Davey, 2021; Rokka, 2021). Although becoming more diversified and open, prejudice and privilege still shape tourism experiences and produce instances of marginalisation through serial and dialectical processes. Existing structural barriers and constraints hinder some people from fully enjoying tourism products and services, and reduce their opportunities to influence their own situation. These procedures occur within, for example at passport control stations, as well as outside of the immediate tourism industry, through encounters with local residents. No matter where they occur, their causes, such as prejudice, as well as consequences, such as low self-esteem or inadequacy, need to be addressed by destination management organisations at local, regional and national levels, by public and private organisations, as well as within the tourism research society. Furthermore, sustainable and appropriate measures to address issues of inclusion and exclusion based on race, ethnicity and nationality must be explicitly included in evaluations and strategic documents.

The methodology used in this article provided an avenue to gather different perspectives across demographics, and a space to address and open for increased understanding of inequalities in tourism. Thus, there is an important methodological contribution to the reflective and critical research approach. The entanglements and tensions that surfaced were not resolved during the reflective sessions, and as a full group we did not reach a full transformative dialogue (Brown et al., 1999; Cai & McKenna, 2023; Shepherd et al., 2020). The individual memories, the reflective sessions, and the following analysis are all ‘social processes that produce both consensus and conflict’ (Morgan, 2007, p. 72). As the entanglements indicate, fully grappling with others’ experiences and viewpoints may include getting stuck. Conflicts should not be avoided, and tensions should be allowed to surface. To resolve them in the long run, we should not shy away from engaging in reflective conversations and address our privileges and disadvantages. We may not be able to fully understand each other's experiences, but we can form an understanding. Thus, we wish to end this article with giving the readers a reflective question – how can we increase understanding of our differentiated positionalities through tourism and tourism research? Our reflective journey has just started.

Acknowledgements

Author contributions: All authors listed were involved in the data collection process which was based on autoethnographic and collaborative reflections. The first three authors have equally contributed to the analysis and the drafting of the manuscript and have shared first authorship. Remaining contributors read the manuscript and have agreed on the content.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research is part of the project The Role of Tourism in Multicultural Societies funded by the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development, FORMAS (FR-2018/0010).

Notes on contributors

Eva Maria Jernsand

Eva Maria Jernsand is a Researcher in Marketing at School of Business, Economics and Law, and affiliated to the Centre for Tourism, both at University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research interests revolve around learning, inclusiveness and co-creation in place branding and destination development. Eva Maria has published in journals such as Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Tourism Recreation Research, Social Enterprise Journal and Action Research Journal.

Helena Kraff

Helena Kraff works as a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Embedded Design at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing arts, University of Gothenburg. As a design researcher she engages in research on collaborative and inclusive tourism practices. She has published in journals such as Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Social Enterprise Journal, The Design Journal and Journal of Co-Design.

Sayaka Osanami Törngren

Sayaka Osanami Törngren is Associate Professor of International Migration and Ethnic Relations and a senior researcher at the Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM), Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University. She is engaged in research on intermarriage, identities, racialisation, and racisms in Sweden and Japan. Her most recent publications can be found in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Comparative Migration Studies and Ethnicities.

Caroline Adolfsson

Caroline Adolfsson is a PhD Candidate at Malmö University, Sweden. As a social psychologist, she studies the intersection between ethno-national group constructions and personal identities, with a particular focus on how in-group boundaries are ratified and maintained in Sweden.

Emma Björner

Emma Björner is a Researcher at Gothenburg Research Institute, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg. Her research centres on sustainable tourism, destination branding and place development. Emma’s work has been published in journals like the Journal of Marketing Management, Cities, Sustainability, Event Management, and Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. She is a member of research environments like the Centre for Tourism, the Centre for Consumption Research, and Managing Big Cities.

Lillian Omondi

Lillian Omondi is a Researcher in Sociology at School of Arts and Social Sciences, Maseno University, Kenya. Her research interests include social capital and its influence on community action, migration and migrant networks, engendering research and community action and community led climate change adaptation, social inclusion and mentorship. Key experience includes participatory community development dealing with youth, women in urban and rural communities, developing survey tools, conducting household surveys, Monitoring and Evaluation, Project Development and Strategic Planning.

Thomas Pederson

Thomas Pederson is Professor in Informatics at School of Business, Economics and IT, University West, Sweden. He researches and teaches human–computer interaction, specifically the development of mobile and wearable systems that seamlessly blend with and support ongoing real-world tasks and give rise to what we refer to as an egocentric interaction paradigm.

Sofia Ulver

Sofia Ulver is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the School of Economics and Management at Lund University. Her research lies at the intersection of consumer culture theory and critical marketing, particularly the functioning of ideology and diffusion of marketing discourse in society. Topics include the conflict market, foodie culture, algorithmic culture and political inertia. Her research has appeared in journals such as Marketing Theory, Journal of Consumer Culture, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Marketing Management.