Religious Tourism Through a Gender Lens

Abstract

This chapter compares Gilbert’s narrative and the yoga tourists with another form of religiously based tourism, short-term mission trips sponsored largely by Protestant congregations, sometimes called “gospel tourism.” In exploring the discourses around each, the chapter argues that the former is gendered female and the latter gendered male. Although the privileged middle-class status of both groups of travelers is mostly taken for granted, the yoga tourists are often seen as narcissistic and self-indulgent, whereas the short-term mission trips are frequently discussed in terms of service and civic engagement. The chapter suggests that we need to examine how assumptions about gender shape these discourses. Placing both in the context of “lived religion” helps illuminate our understanding of how religious trajectories are gendered.