Tourism, Resilience, and Gender Relations

This thesis examines tourism’s potential to foster socio-political transformation in theocratic and authoritarian contexts. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on Qeshm and Hormuz islands, Iran, it explores how tourism contests state ideology that regulates bodies, gender, and mobility. Using evolutionary economic geography and resilience thinking, the study shows how tourism contributes to reconfiguring vertical (state–society) and horizontal (community) power relations. Tourism creates spaces where women gain visibility, economic independence, and social legitimacy, subtly challenging patriarchal norms. The thesis conceptualizes path inclusivity and transformative resilience, reframing tourism as a politically embedded process of adaptation and cultural redefinition in restrictive settings.