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Dr Phiona Stanley's Outputs (33)

Theorising Deep and Shallow Diversity: Critiquing The North Face’s Allyship in the Outdoors program (2025)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Witte, A., & Stanley, P. (2025, August). Theorising Deep and Shallow Diversity: Critiquing The North Face’s Allyship in the Outdoors program. Presented at Royal Geographical Society International Conference, Birmingham, UK

Recreational access to the outdoors is good for human bodyminds (Natural England, 2016a, 2016b). But for many reasons —conceptually divisible into tangible and intangible constraints (Urry, 2007)— some people do not regularly access outdoors spaces.... Read More about Theorising Deep and Shallow Diversity: Critiquing The North Face’s Allyship in the Outdoors program.

Walking “alone”? Critical autoethnography, assemblage, and the paradoxical co-production of solo-hiker subjectivity (2025)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2025, August). Walking “alone”? Critical autoethnography, assemblage, and the paradoxical co-production of solo-hiker subjectivity. Presented at Royal Geographical Society International Conference, University of Birmingham

This autoethnographic performance text examines the paradoxical co-production of “aloneness” in nature spaces charged with a politics of memory. The context is hiking “alone” as a fat, middle-aged, queer woman, to Highland Clearances ruins and bothie... Read More about Walking “alone”? Critical autoethnography, assemblage, and the paradoxical co-production of solo-hiker subjectivity.

Qualitative thinking and writing with whisky: Malt metaphors and island hopping (2025)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P., & Clarke, D. (2025, January). Qualitative thinking and writing with whisky: Malt metaphors and island hopping. Presented at 8th European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Edinburgh

The aim of this workshop is to radically situate the participants in the stories and senses of Scottish single malt whiskies, exploring meanings and metaphors that whisky suggests and considering its place in different aspects of Scottish life (beari... Read More about Qualitative thinking and writing with whisky: Malt metaphors and island hopping.

Munro bagging and the conquering logic of conquest: Why do we hike? (2025)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2025, January). Munro bagging and the conquering logic of conquest: Why do we hike?. Paper presented at 8th European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Edinburgh

This paper presents an autoethnographic narrative about the social constructedness of ‘nature’ (e.g. Macfarlane, 2003) and the mobilities systems (Urry, 2007) that undergird a binary: bodies that are conventionally read as legitimately ‘outdoorsy’ ve... Read More about Munro bagging and the conquering logic of conquest: Why do we hike?.

Theorizing ‘cultural authenticity’ in Australian youth tourism: English language schools, the Anglophone West, and holding a koala (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P., & Wight, C. (2024, May). Theorizing ‘cultural authenticity’ in Australian youth tourism: English language schools, the Anglophone West, and holding a koala. Presented at International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA

This study considers cultural adaptation through tourism, focusing on language-travelers: hybrid education-tourism consumers whose voices remain relatively silent in tourism studies. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with studen... Read More about Theorizing ‘cultural authenticity’ in Australian youth tourism: English language schools, the Anglophone West, and holding a koala.

Assemblage and/as autoethnography: The paradoxical co-production of solo subjectivity on hiking trails (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2024, May). Assemblage and/as autoethnography: The paradoxical co-production of solo subjectivity on hiking trails. Paper presented at International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois, USA

This paper examines the complex production of “aloneness” as subjectivity, considering lived experience and multimedia Instagram/Facebook texts. The context is hiking and camping and bothying “alone” and, in particular, hiking alone as a fat, middle-... Read More about Assemblage and/as autoethnography: The paradoxical co-production of solo subjectivity on hiking trails.

Queering queerness: Reflections on witches and spinsterhood in post-pandemic times (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2024, March). Queering queerness: Reflections on witches and spinsterhood in post-pandemic times. Paper presented at Gender and Sexuality Research Symposium, Edinburgh, UK

In pandemic times, there were couple-bubbles and household bubbles and social bubbles. And then there was me, uncoupled, unchilded: a bubble of one.

In early modern Scotland, the Witchcraft Act (1563) held my type as “rebel women who talked back,... Read More about Queering queerness: Reflections on witches and spinsterhood in post-pandemic times.

Autoethnography, assemblage, and the lived/researched subjectivity of hiking "alone" (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2023, January). Autoethnography, assemblage, and the lived/researched subjectivity of hiking "alone". Paper presented at European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Portsmouth, UK

This paper examines the complex production of “aloneness” as subjectivity, considering lived experience, multimedia Instagram/Facebook texts, and academic writing. The context is hiking and camping/bothying “alone” and, in particular, hiking alone as... Read More about Autoethnography, assemblage, and the lived/researched subjectivity of hiking "alone".

Author Spotlight: An Autoethnography of Fitting In: On Spinsterhood, Fatness and Backpacker Tourism (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2022, January). Author Spotlight: An Autoethnography of Fitting In: On Spinsterhood, Fatness and Backpacker Tourism. Presented at 2022 International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative (ISAN), Florida/Online

An Autoethnography of Fitting In: On Spinsterhood, Fatness, and Backpacker Tourism is a feminist narrative about the social rules of obedience and acquiescence to the norm – embodiment, heteronormativity, partnering – and about fitting in, or not, wi... Read More about Author Spotlight: An Autoethnography of Fitting In: On Spinsterhood, Fatness and Backpacker Tourism.

Assemblages and/as the production of subjectivities: Fat girl, hiking (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2022, January). Assemblages and/as the production of subjectivities: Fat girl, hiking. Paper presented at 2022 International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative (ISAN), Florida/Online

About fatness, hiking, and assemblages, and about how things come together in unlikely ways to produce subjectivities.

A bubble of one: Reflections on witches and spinsterhood in pandemic times (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2021, September). A bubble of one: Reflections on witches and spinsterhood in pandemic times. Paper presented at 6th Critical Autoethnography Conference, Melbourne, Australia and online

In these pandemic times there are couple-bubbles and household bubbles and social bubbles. And then there is me, uncoupled, unchilded, in a bubble of one. (Four if you count the cats.)

In early modern Scotland, the Witchcraft Act (1563) held my t... Read More about A bubble of one: Reflections on witches and spinsterhood in pandemic times.

(Not) costing the earth? Theorizing flight shame, train bragging, and campervan travel (2020)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2020, February). (Not) costing the earth? Theorizing flight shame, train bragging, and campervan travel. Paper presented at European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Malta

Flygskam (flight-shame), a Swedish neologism, hints at an emerging climate-smart tourist movement: closer-to-home, flight-free travel1. But going overland is more expensive and time consuming than flying, as capitalism does not price in environmental... Read More about (Not) costing the earth? Theorizing flight shame, train bragging, and campervan travel.

Homecoming: Walking methodologies as ontology and epistemology (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2019, July). Homecoming: Walking methodologies as ontology and epistemology. Paper presented at Activism, Social Justice & Collaboration: The Sixth British Conference of Autoethnography, Bristol

Volunteer tourism as/and activism (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2019, July). Volunteer tourism as/and activism. Presented at Activism, Social Justice & Collaboration: The Sixth British Conference of Autoethnography, Bristol

Volunteer tourism in Latin America: Activism, epistemic violence, and/or cultural relativism? (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2019, February). Volunteer tourism in Latin America: Activism, epistemic violence, and/or cultural relativism?. Paper presented at 3rd European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Edinburgh

Latin America has a history of “internacionalistas”: outsiders travelling to help resistance efforts against murderous right-wing regimes. In the 1950s and 1960s, Che Guevara volunteered as a medic in Guatemala, Cuba, and Bolivia, and in the 1980s, i... Read More about Volunteer tourism in Latin America: Activism, epistemic violence, and/or cultural relativism?.

Messodology in the margins: Researchers’ own constructions in/as data (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2019, February). Messodology in the margins: Researchers’ own constructions in/as data. Paper presented at 3rd European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Edinburgh, UK

Here’s something that’s been discredited, but let’s take it one step further. In qualitative research, we know it’s hokum that an all-knowing researcher “collects” data —springing already formed— from participants. Data “collection”, we know, is all... Read More about Messodology in the margins: Researchers’ own constructions in/as data.

“Researching” real-life gendered normativities and performances of expertise: Natural ethnography, friendship as method, and a campervan conversion project (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2018, November). “Researching” real-life gendered normativities and performances of expertise: Natural ethnography, friendship as method, and a campervan conversion project. Paper presented at Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines, Chile

Last year, I bought a former plumber’s van and built myself a campervan. Then I reflected on the experience —including writing about it in scholarly spaces— as a learning ‘journey’ and as a series of identity negotiations. There was the everyday sexi... Read More about “Researching” real-life gendered normativities and performances of expertise: Natural ethnography, friendship as method, and a campervan conversion project.

Panel and Book Launch: Questions of Culture in Autoethnography (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Stanley, P. (2018, July). Panel and Book Launch: Questions of Culture in Autoethnography. Presented at Critical Autoethnography Conference 2018: Critical Autoethnography as Wayfaring/Wayfinding, Auckland, New Zealand