A recipe for paradise? : gendered tourism in Rarotonga

Abstract

The Cook Islands, proclaimed by the national tourism corporation as "your recipe for true paradise", has followed a tourism-led recipe for economic development. This thesis examines some of the ways by which "paradise" is constituted. Gender is one of the key components of the Cook Islands recipe for paradise. Tourism in Rarotonga is constituted through gender, and gender in Rarotonga is in turn conditioned by tourism. This enquiry offers depth and texture to the issue of tourism for development by clarifying some of the ways in which tourism interacts with individuals and not just economies. A poststructuralist and feminist approach is used with qualitative research methods to disclose the co-constitutive nature of gender and tourism in Rarotonga. Butler's (1990, 2004) concept of the performativity of gender, as an enacted repetition is utilised to examine how gender is sold, enacted and internalised in tourism production. A more complex view of tourism emerges from the scrutiny of the ways in which tourism is gendered in Rarotonga from the prominence of women in marketing images, to the focus on women's dancing in Island Night shows, to the reinforcement of the friendly smiles of women working in the tourism industry. Charting the complexities and power relation within tourism is the first step in informed tourism planning. This thesis reveals the co-constitution of tourism and gender and points to the diverse effects an industry such as tourism can have on imaginations of place and identity.