157 Letter from Adele Ladkin
To our future tourism researchers
My career, I’m sure like for many others, has involved a lot of hard work, an element of good luck, has been full of ups and downs, and has had me laughing with joy and screaming with frustration. I continue to be delighted and surprised by some of the things I am able to do and achieve in my work, and on many occasions am baffled by my own stupidity. All of that aside, I consider myself very privileged to have spent more than 25 years immersed in tourism research (and surrounded by researchers) and all it (they) have to offer. I wish the same for you.
So what do I write to you today? As someone who has spent a number of years reading and writing about careers, I feel somewhat under pressure to give some good career advice! Not sure if this constitutes good, but here goes.
As a starting point, it’s worth being mindful that an academic career is a very structured one. It has defined career routes, clear stages of advancement, expectations of achievement at each academic level, and often involves mobility within and between institutions. Operating alongside this structure are the choices we make as individuals regarding our careers; including opportunities, constraints, interests, expertise, preferences and our personal circumstances. Borrowing from Gunz (1988) who was writing in relation to managerial careers in organisations, he likened the structures of an organisation to a climbing frame, over which managers scramble to make their careers. So in our case, the structured framework is our institutions (both internal and external) and our choices we make that direct our scrambles. An academic career also has deep routed traditions, many of which were laid down when University academics were a much less diverse group of people. I do remember a time when I could never fill in any surveys anonymously, because once I had ticked the boxes of rank (Professor) gender (Female) and School (Tourism) everyone knew it was me. You guessed it; I was the lone female Professor. The structures of academic careers are embedded in the past, and whilst change is evident, there remains an ‘expected’ career path, as is the case for many professional occupations. It can be unforgiving for those who are not willing or able to play the game, but I am pleased to say that this landscape has and continues (slowly) to change for the better.
Set in this context, the advice I would give is to be aware of the career framework and to have a plan – where do you want to be in your career in three, five, or ten years time? What are you going to need to do to follow your plan? What sacrifices are you prepared to make, if any? Is there anyone who can support you in your decision making? In academia, there are traditional ‘rites of passage’ that individuals are expected to go through as we work to build our knowledge and skills, not all positive experiences it has to be said! There is also an assumption that people always w