Gender, Identity and Discourse in the Consumption of Leisure Travel: An Ethnomethodological Approach

Although there are recent interesting developments in the study of gender in tourism, there does not appear to be much focus on the language and communication of gender in tourist interaction. In ‘doing’ gender in interaction it is necessary to ask how do members make conversation that demonstrated an orientation to gender or has some basis for analysis on the grounds of gender? Secondly, how do members of society produce interview talk in a way that demonstrates the relevance of gender? This paper seeks to elaborate these questions taking an ethnomethodological (EM)/conversation analysis (CA) approach to the analysis of tourist interview data. It provides analytic examples of the types of features of conversational interviews that display an orientation to gender, identity and relationships. It argues that both women and men ‘do’ similar types of work in their constructions and formulations of activities and experiences with others. Participants actively orient to gender in their on-going construction of identity and accomplishment as normal, credible members of society. The paper provides pointers to an analytic framework for further analyses of these issues in relation to tourism talk.