The social, cultural, economic and political strategies extending women’s territory by encroaching on patriarchal embeddedness in tourism in Nepal

Abstract

Globally, there is significant growth in women exploring entrepreneurship to disrupt poverty, notwithstanding they face more serious challenges when compared to male counterparts. For women entrepreneurs in Nepal, not only are they marginalised in their tourism business endeavours, they are also highly regulated by caste and class, and patriarchal inequality. Using a critical theoretical framework within a qualitative grounded theory approach, we revealed ways in which Nepali women subvert the institutionalised gender and power structures. The critical perspective engages with socially constructed layers of historical, political, cultural, economic and gender values that have been embedded over time. Sixteen Nepali women entrepreneurs in tourism were interviewed between 2014 and 2019. Patriarchal embeddedness in social, business and tourism environments are overcome by Nepali women through micro enterprise development. Women are engaging in female domains such as homestay, but also infiltrating male domains such as trekking and tour-guiding. Nepali women’s political strategies are subtle and understated. The capacity of Nepali women to encroach on patriarchy through tourism shows that women have adapted to redress socially constructed imbalances. Tourism provided opportunities to find their agency in a world that has been largely silenced. Women’s skills and roles are now infiltrating ingrained patriarchy.

Keywords:

• Critical theory
• political economy
• qualitative research
• social change
• tourism development
• sustainable tourism

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the editors and reviewers of this article for their insightful help and patience. We also wish to acknowledge the women who participated in the study, as without them there would be no research for us to disseminate and subsequently, no contribution to knowledge.

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Where quotations are drawn from participants’ own narratives, these quotations have been italicised and indicated with double quotations to clearly denote them as such. We have retained the language, syntax, grammar and expressions used by participants to maintain the integrity of representation of their voices and stories. To take away the expression would modify the data. Therefore, the verbatim data are their own words as far as possible.

2 In the context of Nepal, the National Dalits Commission defines 'Dalits' as "those communities who, by virtue of atrocities of caste-based discrimination and untouchability, are most backward in social, economic, educational, political and religious fields, and deprived of human dignity and social justice” (Dalit Welfare Organisation, 2018).

3 For a full discussion of English being spoken and taught in all Nepali primary schools, please see Mitchell, D. (2018) Teaching ‘in our remoteness’: A constructivist grounded theory of primary school teaching in a remote area of Nepal, unpublished Master of Education (Research) thesis, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Central Queensland University Merit Grant Funding under Grant HE1308.

Notes on contributors

Wendy Hillman

Dr Wendy Hillman is an international leader in Nepal area studies research. Her research is published in leading research journals, with additional books and book chapters published with prestigious scholarly publishers and editors. She has also authored a number of industry and government reports that continue to be used in tertiary education practice and research. Her research has been at the forefront of International research as it has emerged as a significant international field of theoretical and critical inquiry. Wendy's research maintains connection with sociological aspects of international women’s health and empowerment including management policy and practice. She has been awarded competitive research funding including Australian Research Council grants, industry funding and prestigious fellowships. Her research leadership draws on her prior experience as Wendy is an Executive Member of the Council for Australasian University Teachers and Educators, and a member of the Australia Sociological Association, where she served as a past Treasurer.

Kylie Radel

Dr Kylie Radel is a Senior Lecturer in marketing and tourism at Central Queensland University. I completed my doctorate in 2010 using a grounded theory approach to examine factors for success for an Indigenous tourism enterprise and I am currently jointly authoring a book on the grounded theory method. My research has three core foci including: Indigenous social justice, gender and entrepreneurship, and qualitative research methodologies. I have authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications and have worked on and/or been the chief investigator for over $191,000 in funded research projects. I am currently Chief Investigator for a successful Merit Grant to investigate “Empowerment, emancipation and equality for women in Nepal through entrepreneurship and tourism”. I have also received three prestigious teaching awards and an international award for excellence in the area of literacy and education. I support a number of masters and PhD research students as principal and/or associate supervisor and I have been an invited key note speaker at conferences in Spain on Indigenous education and Canada on Indigenous economic development and has delivered a range of training sessions in qualitative research methods for Pokhara University (Nepal), University of Alberta (Canada), and Columbia College (South Carolina, USA) and CQU.