This paper reports on the activities, processes and outputs in the first 18 months of a 3 year co... more This paper reports on the activities, processes and outputs in the first 18 months of a 3 year collaborative project, the Gold Coast Integrated Response for Youth at Risk. Survey, focus group and interview data were collected from project participants as part of a formative evaluation. Results identify both success and ongoing challenges within the project. Five key findings from the project are presented and discussed. These relate to issues such as the need for well designed project evaluation, and negotiating and clearly defining governance processes during the initial project planning stages. In addition, stakeholder communication and engagement processes are identified as an area of concern. The inherent tension of working collaboratively in a competitive (funding) culture and finding an operational balance between developmental processes and more tangible project outputs are discussed.
Women in contemporary Western society have increased options, resources, and opportunities to acc... more Women in contemporary Western society have increased options, resources, and opportunities to access a greater array of tourism and leisure choices. Yet the freedoms women have to consume these choices, and to access satisfying leisure and travel experiences, may be constrained by their social and gendered location as females. Leisure-based research has shown that women tend to be more highly and intensely constrained in their leisure pursuits, particularly when these activities are undertaken out of the home or in the outdoors. Little research, however, has explored how constraints impact on women's experiences in a tourism context, especially when they travel "solo." This article presents results of a qualitative, exploratory study of 40 Australian women's experiences of solo travel. In-depth interviews with these women reveal that constraints do exist and exert influence on their lives and travel experiences in a myriad of ways. Four interlinking categories of constraint were identified through a grounded approach to data analysis: sociocultural, personal, practical, and spatial. Further definition of these categories evolved, depending on where the women were situated in their travel experience (i.e., "pretravel" or "during travel"). The women's solo travel constraints will be presented and defined in this article, and practical implications for the tourism industry will also be discussed.
family meetings to ''get everyone on the same page'' or lay out options for parents. This is espe... more family meetings to ''get everyone on the same page'' or lay out options for parents. This is especially common when the prognosis is poor or when the family is facing end-of-life decisions for their child. There is little evidence for how to have a successful family meeting, who should be invited, and, most importantly, how to respond to intense family emotions. A family is often brought to a room, surrounded by the child's care team and various specialists. As nonphysician members of the pediatric palliative care team, we are uniquely positioned to observe multiple approaches on how the information is being given to the family. What is discussed in the meeting and what is understood by the family are often very different. It has been our experience that families leave these meetings feeling confused and overwhelmed, making it difficult for them to make any decisions. We have found that while it is important to have a plan it is equally important to have the ability to leave that plan at the door and address family emotions when the situation demands it.
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 2012
This article applies a critical, deconstructive lens to examine the assumptions underpinning rese... more This article applies a critical, deconstructive lens to examine the assumptions underpinning research in Indigenous tourism. The authors propose a conceptual typology to explore the presence, role and voice of Indigenous people within this body of research. The typology consists of four main positions, namely: invisible, identified, stakeholder, and Indigenous-driven. Examples of Indigenous tourism literature are then used to illustrate this paper's main argument, which is that although Indigenous tourism has been a topic of academic interest for over three decades, it is still predominantly driven by the needs and priorities of non-Indigenous people. Ultimately, it appears that Indigenous voice and presence as scholars and researchers within the Indigenous tourism literature remain elusive.
This paper tells the story of how I discovered both ‘self’ and ‘research’ during a qualitative Ph... more This paper tells the story of how I discovered both ‘self’ and ‘research’ during a qualitative PhD study on women who travel solo. This story will emphasise the importance – if not the necessity - of self-discovery through research. It will argue that one cannot divorce oneself entirely from one’s research, as is suggested by traditional, quantitative approaches to academic enquiry. Such a claim, of course, brings into play contemporary debates on ontology and epistemology, and how a researcher’s worldview greatly influences the nature and conduct of her enquiry. As part of my PhD research, I conducted forty in-depth interviews with Australian women who had travelled overseas alone. The study’s aims were to investigate the meaning of solo travel for women, and to identify the constraints that they face during such travel. An interpretive, feminist framework was adopted to guide this project. While studying other women’s journeys, I found that I myself had also embarked on a solo journey of sorts – a journey of great self-discovery which saw me question my views about the world, how I related to people, and what I thought was important in the pursuit of academic knowledge. I say a ‘solo’ journey because I found myself relatively alone as a qualitative, feminist researcher in a field (tourism studies) where objectivity, generalisation and distance were often the prized goals. This was not an easy journey at all times, similar to the solo travails experienced by the women I interviewed. Self-doubt, fear of criticism and a sense of isolation were common elements in our respective journeys. Yet, interestingly, these were the very factors that nurtured our learning processes, and which encouraged us to find ways to negotiate through our constraints. In summary, this paper will explore the parallels between my (often) solo journey of self/research discovery, and the solo journeys of the women travellers I interviewed.
Traditionally, descriptions of adventure recreation have tended to incorporate a limited range of... more Traditionally, descriptions of adventure recreation have tended to incorporate a limited range of physically isolated and challenging activities. More recently, the concept of adventure has been used quite broadly within the leisure field (eg the 'adventure' of visiting nature; ...
This paper reports on the activities, processes and outputs in the first 18 months of a 3 year co... more This paper reports on the activities, processes and outputs in the first 18 months of a 3 year collaborative project, the Gold Coast Integrated Response for Youth at Risk. Survey, focus group and interview data were collected from project participants as part of a formative evaluation. Results identify both success and ongoing challenges within the project. Five key findings from the project are presented and discussed. These relate to issues such as the need for well designed project evaluation, and negotiating and clearly defining governance processes during the initial project planning stages. In addition, stakeholder communication and engagement processes are identified as an area of concern. The inherent tension of working collaboratively in a competitive (funding) culture and finding an operational balance between developmental processes and more tangible project outputs are discussed.
Women in contemporary Western society have increased options, resources, and opportunities to acc... more Women in contemporary Western society have increased options, resources, and opportunities to access a greater array of tourism and leisure choices. Yet the freedoms women have to consume these choices, and to access satisfying leisure and travel experiences, may be constrained by their social and gendered location as females. Leisure-based research has shown that women tend to be more highly and intensely constrained in their leisure pursuits, particularly when these activities are undertaken out of the home or in the outdoors. Little research, however, has explored how constraints impact on women's experiences in a tourism context, especially when they travel "solo." This article presents results of a qualitative, exploratory study of 40 Australian women's experiences of solo travel. In-depth interviews with these women reveal that constraints do exist and exert influence on their lives and travel experiences in a myriad of ways. Four interlinking categories of constraint were identified through a grounded approach to data analysis: sociocultural, personal, practical, and spatial. Further definition of these categories evolved, depending on where the women were situated in their travel experience (i.e., "pretravel" or "during travel"). The women's solo travel constraints will be presented and defined in this article, and practical implications for the tourism industry will also be discussed.
family meetings to ''get everyone on the same page'' or lay out options for parents. This is espe... more family meetings to ''get everyone on the same page'' or lay out options for parents. This is especially common when the prognosis is poor or when the family is facing end-of-life decisions for their child. There is little evidence for how to have a successful family meeting, who should be invited, and, most importantly, how to respond to intense family emotions. A family is often brought to a room, surrounded by the child's care team and various specialists. As nonphysician members of the pediatric palliative care team, we are uniquely positioned to observe multiple approaches on how the information is being given to the family. What is discussed in the meeting and what is understood by the family are often very different. It has been our experience that families leave these meetings feeling confused and overwhelmed, making it difficult for them to make any decisions. We have found that while it is important to have a plan it is equally important to have the ability to leave that plan at the door and address family emotions when the situation demands it.
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 2012
This article applies a critical, deconstructive lens to examine the assumptions underpinning rese... more This article applies a critical, deconstructive lens to examine the assumptions underpinning research in Indigenous tourism. The authors propose a conceptual typology to explore the presence, role and voice of Indigenous people within this body of research. The typology consists of four main positions, namely: invisible, identified, stakeholder, and Indigenous-driven. Examples of Indigenous tourism literature are then used to illustrate this paper's main argument, which is that although Indigenous tourism has been a topic of academic interest for over three decades, it is still predominantly driven by the needs and priorities of non-Indigenous people. Ultimately, it appears that Indigenous voice and presence as scholars and researchers within the Indigenous tourism literature remain elusive.
This paper tells the story of how I discovered both ‘self’ and ‘research’ during a qualitative Ph... more This paper tells the story of how I discovered both ‘self’ and ‘research’ during a qualitative PhD study on women who travel solo. This story will emphasise the importance – if not the necessity - of self-discovery through research. It will argue that one cannot divorce oneself entirely from one’s research, as is suggested by traditional, quantitative approaches to academic enquiry. Such a claim, of course, brings into play contemporary debates on ontology and epistemology, and how a researcher’s worldview greatly influences the nature and conduct of her enquiry. As part of my PhD research, I conducted forty in-depth interviews with Australian women who had travelled overseas alone. The study’s aims were to investigate the meaning of solo travel for women, and to identify the constraints that they face during such travel. An interpretive, feminist framework was adopted to guide this project. While studying other women’s journeys, I found that I myself had also embarked on a solo journey of sorts – a journey of great self-discovery which saw me question my views about the world, how I related to people, and what I thought was important in the pursuit of academic knowledge. I say a ‘solo’ journey because I found myself relatively alone as a qualitative, feminist researcher in a field (tourism studies) where objectivity, generalisation and distance were often the prized goals. This was not an easy journey at all times, similar to the solo travails experienced by the women I interviewed. Self-doubt, fear of criticism and a sense of isolation were common elements in our respective journeys. Yet, interestingly, these were the very factors that nurtured our learning processes, and which encouraged us to find ways to negotiate through our constraints. In summary, this paper will explore the parallels between my (often) solo journey of self/research discovery, and the solo journeys of the women travellers I interviewed.
Traditionally, descriptions of adventure recreation have tended to incorporate a limited range of... more Traditionally, descriptions of adventure recreation have tended to incorporate a limited range of physically isolated and challenging activities. More recently, the concept of adventure has been used quite broadly within the leisure field (eg the 'adventure' of visiting nature; ...
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Papers by Erica Wilson