Women’s voices in tourism research

We are eight women tourism scholars whose paths intersected at the Tourism Administration Department, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. Our story includes a myriad of accomplishments and challenges since our department’s inception in 1976. First, as a two-year undergraduate program, then its evolution to a four-year program, followed by its expansion to include an MA program, involved the invaluable contributions of many faculty members (full-time, part-time, women and men). We have known each other in different roles, e.g., student-professor relationships or alumni of the same schools. We are now proud colleagues supporting one another to create spaces for collaborative research and teaching for sustainable tourism in a context posing diverse challenges at the individual and institutional levels.

Being a faculty member at Boğaziçi University provides various advantages, while its status as a state university is not without its challenges. The education language is English, which is a great facilitator for international collaborations in research. On the other hand, it isolates us from other universities in the country, with courses taught in Turkish and a predominantly domestic focus on teaching and research. We are nearly seen as foreigners because of our engagement in international collaborations and our aim for publications with a broader impact. The tenure track system in higher education in Turkey depends on a tenure review process, where external reviewers from other universities evaluate the candidate’s work and impact in the field. Therefore, the isolation from other universities and male-dominant academic life represent other challenges for our career advancements. That is, we also face the risk of being negatively evaluated by other academicians, who could be biased against women or faculty members from universities with a curriculum in the English language.

Categorized as a research university by the national higher education authority, Boğaziçi University supports researchers in multiple ways. The university’s grants for scientific research projects (BAP) are particularly critical for scholars at the start of their careers. Our BAP start-up projects contributed to the research presence of many of us. Driven by Boğaziçi University’s focus on research, we established links with researchers from local and foreign universities. Pairing with researchers from other universities worldwide has provided benefits such as access to varied sources of funding, knowledge and synergies that allow for cross-fertilization of ideas. Many of these partnerships have been formed at international academic conferences in which long-lasting friendships were also established. Unsurprisingly, many of these partnerships have been with other like-minded women scholars.

Turkey’s geographical location as a bridge between the Middle East and Europe, paired with the research and international orientation of Boğaziçi University, has also helped us expand our networks. Our research projects (e.g., COST applications and EU-funded projects), international student and faculty exchange programs, joint field study programs and guest lecturers from abroad (the US, the UK, Denmark and Japan) resulted from this positive enabling contextual environment.