'This is not only about culture': on tourism, gender stereotypes and other affective fluxes

In this article, I challenge the idea of a ?one-way? relationship in which

tourists are supposed to contribute with economic resources and freer

gender roles to the development and empowerment of ?poor, rural and

traditional women?. By reflecting on my own located, gendered and

embodied position during my ethnographic fieldwork among women

performing bobbin lace in the Coast of Death (Galicia, Spain), I analyze

how gender roles and stereotypes interact in both directions, leading to

misunderstandings and performances of pride and resentment on behalf

of the craftswomen. Some gender stereotypes associated with the

craftswomen by the tourist gaze and other affective fluxes such as

policies, economy and heritage regimes are not only changing contexts

but also being embodied, traditionalizing the craftswomen and curtailing

their flexible economic practices by transforming both crafts and bodies

into something that is just ?culture?.

Feminism. Affect. Crafts. Tourism impacts. Heritage management. Galicia.