Women’s participation in tourism in Zanzibar : an enactment perspective

To shed more light on the position of women in tourism, in this thesis I examined the ways women in Zanzibar have incorporated working in tourism in their daily lives by comparing those who work in tourism as entrepreneurs with employees, working in hotels and restaurants. Conceptually my thesis is framed within Weick’s theory of enactment, with special focus on the concept of sensemaking. I used this particular framework to understand how women either reinforce or resist gendered identities by constantly ‘enacting’ their environments. My research showed that the position of women in Zanzibar is highly influenced by religion, marital status and level of education. However, since women make sense of the environment in different ways, perceive different opportunities and constraints, and on the basis of these make different choices, I recommended that programmes customised according to the differences among women should be developed. Second, I argued that these tailor-made programmes should focus on four interventions: education and training, working conditions, self-organisation and microcredit.