ABSTRACT
As two early contributors to gender analysis in tourism studies, we approached this joint paper through email conversations, readily acknowledging our embodiment as researchers, while intertwining tales of our personal and professional journeys as we corresponded through cyberspace. Side-stepping any gender implications for the moment, we thought about either linear evolution or spiralling dialects as the prime mover of change over time. In this representation of our conversations, we offer perspectives on our positionality and engagement with gender analysis in tourism. Coming from contrasting geographical and gender locations, we address our works' contribution to the dialectics of global scholarship in gender, tourism and development studies, as well as its shortcomings, unfulfilled aspirations and personal frustrations. We bounce our memories, observations and ideas back and forth, taking turns in this text, concluding with some suggested directions for the future, based on the ‘critical turn’ in tourism studies. MBS starts off because we settled on ageism rather than sexism to be the determining factor, although it was a close-run thing.
