158 Letter from Mia Larson
Travelling to experience other countries and ways of living has been a way of life since I was a child. I was brought up in a family with a sailing boat and every summer we sailed to different harbours in Sweden and Denmark, and also, when I was a teen, in Croatia. So, I guess that’s where my interest in tourism research started. Travelling served as a way both to get away from, what I considered, the boring little village I grew up in, and get to see new places. As I began travelling by my own in my teens, it was mainly a way to get to know new exiting people and attend cool and fun events. I stayed for longer periods in London working as an au pair, Switzerland working with show jumping horses, and Germany studying German – and for a few years I procrastinated starting a (in some people’s view) “real” life by staying abroad. In a way, my travelling almost got existential, at every new place I could reinvent myself, start fresh, and start a “new” life, even if it was just a few weeks of island hopping in Greece, for example.
At 23 years old, starting university studies, this moving around continued. First part of the bachelor program was in Sundsvall in northern Sweden, and it finished in Uppsala, followed by some courses in Gothenburg before I started PhD studies at the Business School in Gothenburg. Also during my PhD studies I travelled a lot! Research conferences at twelve different places and a few months at Griffith University in Australia combined with a project employment in Östersund in northern Sweden. Of course, this did not stop after I had my PhD, I have continued attending conferences, doing extended research visits and also changed jobs a couple of times. It is still a lifestyle I pursue, integrated in my identity and life pattern, although perhaps not as important anymore, something I learned during the Corona time, time will tell.
So, it seems only natural that I first focused my research on international business and then, a year into the PhD program, switched to events and tourism. I would say that a solid interest in the tourism industry, and of course academic research, combined with a never-ending curiosity, motivated me and made me stay in Academia. Reflecting on key words of my research (collaboration, network interaction, communication, change, innovation, creativity, culture, gender etc.) I realize they go in line with my approach to life (i.e. curiosity and change, travelling and moving, relating and interacting). It may not come as a surprise that most of my research career has been conducted in multi-disciplinary environments where people with different disciplinary backgrounds, paradigms and perspectives come together in research projects. My experience is that this approach to life and work gives a lot in terms of learning to reflect on and understand the world, people, and of course be able to conduct research from many different perspectives. It may also be beneficial in terms of spotti