Claudia towne hirtenfelder subverting broader gender orders

Does the gender order of an ecotourism camp in Botswana have the potential to subvert broader gender orders?

Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder Human Sciences Research Council Africa Institute of South Africa University of Johannesburg

Gender Order?

Tourism’s subversive potential

Botswana’s National Ecotourism Strategy • Explicitly states that the impacts of (eco)tourism are financial, social and environmental • Positive and negative host-social and cultural impacts • ““tourism development can lead to changes in family structure and gender roles • - resulting in new opportunities for women and young people/ • leading to tensions and loss of self-esteem for men and older generations”

Does labour in Botswana’s ecotourism lodges subvert broader gender orders which shape how labour and life are organised generally? If so/not, how?

Theory • Gluckmann’s “Total Social Organisation of Labour” • Acker’s “Inequality regime” • Bifurcated discourses and identifying taken for granted assumptions – Noting subversion

Methods • 45 participants in total • Semi-structured interviews (40) • Work at the camp (28) • Not related to camp (17)

• Family tree drawings (22) • Participant observations • Challenges and opportunities

Locating the research • Meno A Kwena, Central District • Boteti River • Cattle and wildlife • Scarcity of paid employment • High mobility • Environmental changes • Reduced provisions Photo credit: Africa’s Finest; Makgadikgadi Zebra Migration Research

Female Identity

Masculine and national Identity

Broader Gender Order

Status and cultural symbol

Centrality of grandmothers Child care chain

Cattle care chains

Most established work binary

Cattle Care

Child Care

Importance of extended family in accessing paid employment

Camp Gender Order 27 jobs; 1,000-10,000 Pula; racial and gendered hierarchy

Most established work binary “Because they are stronger”

Maintenance Men

Housekeepin g women

“It’s what they do at home”

Unpacking the discourses

Photo credit: Elephants without borders

Men are stronger and therefore have more skill

Space and Mobili ty

Women are static/Men are mobile

Subver sion?

Low interaction and opportunity

Streng th

Maybe the difficult question now becomes not whether the subversion potential has been lost but whether it was ever there to begin with?

Thank you • Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder • Chirtenfelder@hsrc.ac.za • Towne@live.co.za