‘Some glimpses of an Asian PhD journey in tourism’ – An ethnodrama

Caring for our graduate academy

“…Recent tourism researchers noted that collaborations between professors and students can transform into exploitative arrangements especially in contexts where there are noticeable power imbalances between faculty and students. For example, Mura et al (2021) recently exposed how numerous doctoral students from Southeast Asia experience a sense of obligation to include their professors as co-authors, even when these professors did not actively contribute to the manuscript. In a separate study involving thirteen Southeast Asian tourism and hospitality doctoral students and early career researchers, Mura and Wijesinghe (2022) revealed that PhD students tended to feel obligated to adhere to the requests of their academic professors, regardless of how irrelevant, exploitative, or problematic they may be.…”

“…There are increasingly worrying reports across continents indicating exploitations of graduate students in research and publishing. Scholars purport that graduate supervisors/advisors often prey on doctoral students, using students to write on their behalf, push writing projects forward, grade and provide feedback on undergraduate assignments (Horta & Li, 2023;Mura et al, 2021;Mura & Wijesinghe, 2022), and in some circumstances engage in non-academic related tasks such as cleaning the advisors' offices, homes, or providing childcare (Mura & Wijesinghe, 2022). These worrying signs perpetuate the power dynamic between graduate students and their advisors.…”

The death of tourism scholarship… unless…

“…On the extreme end of the spectrum, co-authorships can become exploitive, particularly in spaces where the power differentials between faculty and students are prominent. The recent ethnodrama by Mura et al (2021) illustrated that many Southeast-Asian doctoral students felt obligated to put their professor's names as co-authors despite the professor not contributing to the manuscript. Such issues are not uncommon, as senior faculty members are historically known for exploiting graduate students (and junior faculty members) as labor for manuscript production (see also Mura & Wijesinghe, 2022).…”

Barista Diary: An autoethnography studying the operational experience of third-wave coffee shop baristas

“…Fourth and lastly, we offer glimpses into an increasingly growing mode of methodological inquiry in hospitality and tourism research. We follow suit with existing hospitality and tourism qualitative researchers (Lee, 2021b;Mura et al, 2021;Noy, 2008;Williams, 2021;Woodhouse, 2018), who turned to narrative/storytelling approaches to study, explain, and evocatively illustrate meanings that may potentially fall victim to trivial representations through conventional prose and inquiry (Bochner & Ellis, 2016;Ellis, 2004). In Barista Diary, we purposefully portrayed four scenes to represent the everyday barista's operational experience.…”

“…Writing an autoethnography requires courage: courage that is thankfully supplied by a growing group of hospitality and tourism qualitative researchers (Lee, 2021b;Mura et al, 2021;Noy, 2008;Williams, 2021;Woodhouse, 2018). These scholars have paved a pathway for us, encouraging researchers to include different means of representing research texts using storytelling, narrative, and writing conventions from literary writing.…”