Gender dissidence in leisure and travel: exploring social vulnerability and resistance in Latin America

Abstract

Due to the challenges that gender-dissident individuals represent for traditional binary gender norms, people with gender dissidence constitute a highly vulnerable social group. In leisure, travel, and tourism studies, the experiences of gender-dissident people have been practically ignored. Based on a necropraxis-necroresistance conceptual framework, this research aimed to explore gender-dissident people's leisure and travel experiences and the resistance strategies they adopt in Latin America. Based on twelve interviews, it revealed that while necropolitics (e.g., State policies) and necropraxis (e.g., interpersonal interactions) in the region negatively determine the everyday social experiences of gender dissidents, necroresistance strategies are adopted by gender dissidents to exist within the leisure and travel arena. The main contribution of this study lies in the adoption of a novel conceptual framework as well as the incorporation of gender dissidence and a particular socio-cultural context largely excluded from leisure and travel studies in the Global North.