Ethnic tourism in Lao PDR: gendered divisions of labour in community-based tourism for poverty reduction

Saithong Phommavong and Erika Sörensson

Current Issues in Tourism, 2014, vol. 17, issue 4, 350-362

Abstract: A simultaneous analysis of gender and ethnicity provides a fuller understanding of how tourism initiatives benefit marginalised groups in developing countries. In this article, the gendered division of labour is analysed as a way to understand the micro-politics of ethnic tourism production aiming at poverty reduction in Laos. The aim is to demonstrate how constructions of gender and ethnicity impact on women's possibilities to benefit from community-based pro-poor tourism initiatives. Socially constructed notions of gendered behaviour influence divisions of tourism labour in specific spatialities, which we argue is crucial knowledge in the implementation of tourism projects aiming at poverty reduction. The assumption that ‘the poor’ constitute a homogenous group might hide an uneven distribution of tourism benefits in local communities. By focusing on factors which marginalise women, the article demonstrates inequalities between men and women in the division of tourism work. A village in northern Laos is used as a case study to examine aspects impacting on gendered divisions of labour in community-based tourism in Laos. Two examples, the Akha people's belief in and worship of spirits, and provision of massage, are used to illuminate reasons behind gendered imbalances in more detail.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13683500.2012.721758 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rcitxx:v:17:y:2014:i:4:p:350-362

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rcit20

DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2012.721758

Access Statistics for this article

Current Issues in Tourism is currently edited by Jennifer Tunstall

More articles in Current Issues in Tourism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().