Alice in WWOOFerLand : exploring symbiotic worlds beyond tourism

Deville, AM

Alice in WWOOFerLand : exploring symbiotic worlds beyond tourism

Deville, AM

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Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2011

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Deville, AM
dc.date.accessioned	2012-05-02T06:14:38Z
dc.date.accessioned	2012-12-15T03:53:42Z
dc.date.available	2012-05-02T06:14:38Z
dc.date.available	2012-12-15T03:53:42Z
dc.date.issued	2011
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/20399
dc.description	University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Business.
dc.description.abstract	Willing Workers on Organic Farms’ (WWOOFing) emerged in the UK in the early 1970s as a means of supporting the organic farming movement and fostering knowledge about its practices, but since that time has steadily become closely entwined with practices of independent global travelling. Current membership is heavily dominated by long term budget travellers and very limited existing research has largely portrayed WWOOFing in terms of farm tourism or the differentiation of more general trends among experience seeking backpackers in search of more ‘authentic’, more intimate encounters with other cultures. While there is certainly utility in such approaches to comprehending WWOOFing, this study endeavours to situate WWOOFing in a more thorough exploration of perspectives or participants. Using surveys, interviews and participant observation of hosts and WWOOFers in Australia, a wide range of data is brought together and interpreted by means of a constructivist grounded theory approach to knowledge generation. The overall aim of this thesis is to understand what WWOOFing is about. By undertaking close analysis and interpretation of the perspectives of those involved, the subject of WWOOFing has been approached in conjunction with, rather than as a subset of the phenomenon of tourism in order to allow for the important perspective for some that WWOOFing is about transcending tourism: being based on interpersonal exchange and normative mechanisms of reciprocity, WWOOFing experiences are commonly perceived as characteristically different from those of ‘tourism’ experiences based upon fee-forservice forms of reciprocity. In terms of host-guest relations particularly, the structure of WWOOFing experiences and the primacy of ‘sincerity’ and ‘existential authenticity’ in WWOOFing encounters are shown to facilitate the creation and occupation of spaces that can directly generate mutually beneficial exchanges for all the selves involved, evoking MacCannell’s ideal ‘Neo-Nomads’ of tourism in the postmodern era, crossing cultural boundaries as welcome(d) “imaginative travellers”. This study finds that though WWOOFing is now largely the domain of ‘tourists’, it is also ultimately and paradoxically it’s ‘exact opposite’ which appears as a reflected, mirror image of it. WWOOFing has always operated ‘beyond the looking glass’, outside of tourism, while yet being attractive to tourists and opening up to them and embracing them as they seek a range of things, including for some, conscious ‘refuge’ from a touristic world. In exploring the ways in which WWOOFing acts to facilitate transcendence of ‘tourism’, and while acknowledging there is a degree of liminal amorphousness between tourism and non-tourism, this study contributes to an ontological reframing of tourism. In doing so, it brings into consideration novel insights into the relationship between power, authenticity and sustainability in the tourism context, with significant implications for understandings of ‘best practice’ sustainable tourism.	en
dc.format	Thesis (PhD)	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.relation	https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/20399/10/02Whole.pdf
dc.relation.replaces	http://hdl.handle.net/2100/1312
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/ppc
dc.subject	Tourism.	en
dc.subject	Wwoofing.	en
dc.subject	Wwoofer.	en
dc.subject	Authenticity.	en
dc.subject	Sustainability.	en
dc.subject	Travel.	en
dc.subject	Australia.	en
dc.title	Alice in WWOOFerLand : exploring symbiotic worlds beyond tourism	en
dc.type	Thesis
utslib.copyright.status	open_access

Abstract:

Willing Workers on Organic Farms’ (WWOOFing) emerged in the UK in the early 1970s as a means of supporting the organic farming movement and fostering knowledge about its practices, but since that time has steadily become closely entwined with practices of independent global travelling. Current membership is heavily dominated by long term budget travellers and very limited existing research has largely portrayed WWOOFing in terms of farm tourism or the differentiation of more general trends among experience seeking backpackers in search of more ‘authentic’, more intimate encounters with other cultures. While there is certainly utility in such approaches to comprehending WWOOFing, this study endeavours to situate WWOOFing in a more thorough exploration of perspectives or participants. Using surveys, interviews and participant observation of hosts and WWOOFers in Australia, a wide range of data is brought together and interpreted by means of a constructivist grounded theory approach to knowledge generation. The overall aim of this thesis is to understand what WWOOFing is about. By undertaking close analysis and interpretation of the perspectives of those involved, the subject of WWOOFing has been approached in conjunction with, rather than as a subset of the phenomenon of tourism in order to allow for the important perspective for some that WWOOFing is about transcending tourism: being based on interpersonal exchange and normative mechanisms of reciprocity, WWOOFing experiences are commonly perceived as characteristically different from those of ‘tourism’ experiences based upon fee-forservice forms of reciprocity. In terms of host-guest relations particularly, the structure of WWOOFing experiences and the primacy of ‘sincerity’ and ‘existential authenticity’ in WWOOFing encounters are shown to facilitate the creation and occupation of spaces that can directly generate mutually beneficial exchanges for all the selves involved, evoking MacCannell’s ideal ‘Neo-Nomads’ of tourism in the postmodern era, crossing cultural boundaries as welcome(d) “imaginative travellers”. This study finds that though WWOOFing is now largely the domain of ‘tourists’, it is also ultimately and paradoxically it’s ‘exact opposite’ which appears as a reflected, mirror image of it. WWOOFing has always operated ‘beyond the looking glass’, outside of tourism, while yet being attractive to tourists and opening up to them and embracing them as they seek a range of things, including for some, conscious ‘refuge’ from a touristic world. In exploring the ways in which WWOOFing acts to facilitate transcendence of ‘tourism’, and while acknowledging there is a degree of liminal amorphousness between tourism and non-tourism, this study contributes to an ontological reframing of tourism. In doing so, it brings into consideration novel insights into the relationship between power, authenticity and sustainability in the tourism context, with significant implications for understandings of ‘best practice’ sustainable tourism.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/20399