Introduction

The introductory chapter provides the historical and cultural contexts to situate the discussions on Victorian women’s travel writing on Meiji Japan in the wider academic debate on the British Empire, Victorian literature, and female travel writing. It provides an overview of Anglo–Japanese relations between 1854 and 1912 to trace shifts in the bilateral relationship and foreground its singularity in a multitude of East–West encounters. It then examines travel writings by both male and female travellers to Meiji Japan and fictional representations of the country in Victorian literature and theatre. It surveys travelogues by a group of female travellers alongside those by diplomats and journalists like Kipling, Japan-related writings by Wilde and Stevenson, and theatrical pieces such as The Mikado. The chapter considers the literary invention of Japan and analyses how women travellers negotiated discursive constraints due to gender and colonialism and challenged mainstream representations of Japan and Japanese people.

Victorian Women's Travel Writing on Meiji Japan

Victorian Women’s Travel Writing on Meiji Japan: Hospitable Friendship explores real-life instances and literary manifestations of cross-cultural friendship between Victorian female travellers and Meiji Japanese, examining its ethico-political significance against the backdrop of British ‘New Imperialism’. Shifting critical focus from the individualist model of subjectivity to affective relationality, Tomoe Kumojima conceptualizes the female travellers’ open subjectivity as hospitable friendship and argues that femininity proves to be an asset in their praxis of more equitable cross-cultural contact in non-colonial Japan. Political affordances of literature are the book’s overarching thread. Kumojima opens new archives of unpublished correspondence and typescripts and introduces contemporary Japanese literature hitherto unavailable in English, shedding a refreshing light on the works of Isabella Bird, Mary Crawford Fraser, and Marie Stopes. The book traverses the themes of identity fluidity, literary afterlife, international female solidarity, literary diplomacy, cross-racial heterosexual intimacy, and cross-gender friendship. It traces the shifts in the representation of Japan in Victorian discourses prompted by Britain’s colonial management, Japan’s successful modernization, the Anglo-Japanese bilateral relationship, and global geopolitics, demonstrating how the women travellers complicated and challenged Oriental stereotypes and imperial binaries by creating counter-discourses through their literary activities. Kumojima also offers parallel narratives of three Meiji female pioneers in Britain and burgeoning transnational feminist alliances. The book addresses the absence of Japan in discussions of the British Empire in the field of literary studies and that of women and female agency in the male-dominated historiography of the Anglo-Japanese relationship.

Encounters with the Self: Women’s Travel Experience in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild

This article examines representations of women’s travel experience in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything across Italy, India and Indonesia (2007) and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. A Journey from Lost to Found (2012). Both authors rely on and, at the same time, subvert generic conventions of masculine and feminine traveling while creating their narrative personas. Alluding to pre-modern cultural meanings of travel and adopting the roles of spiritual pilgrims, the authors renounce their former lives, examine their past mistakes, undergo a transformation and finally regain control of their lives. Paradoxically, though going on a journey is a prerequisite for self-redemption, travel is no longer represented in these texts as an encounter and confrontation with the outer world but rather as a solipsistic practice.

Saudi Women and Vision 2030: Bridging the Gap?

(1) Background, Travel characteristics of Saudi women contrast significantly from those in the west. This is not only because they have different culture, attitudes and preferences but also until recently, Saudi women were not allowed to drive. In 2018, they were granted the right to drive. It has been anticipated that enabling women to drive will improve their mobility and employability. (2) Methods: This study presents a qualitative study into factors affecting Saudi women’s travel decisions “before” and “after” enabling women to drive in the Kingdom. Two six “before” and “after” focus groups have been carried out to investigate the decision-making process associated with Saudi women’s travel, available options of travel and perception of Saudi women towards private car driving. (3) Results: The results reveal that main travelling options for professional and high-income women is a private driver in the “before” scenario and a ride-share option with a family member. In the “after” scenario, high income professional women prefer “drive own car” option. Moreover, many of the participants indicated that it is likely that they might keep private drivers as well. (4) Conclusion. The results from this research indicate that there has been significant change in travel characteristics, attitudes and behaviour of Saudi women since they were granted the right to drive. This is likely to have significant implications for decision and policy makers. Further research into potential impacts of the current situation on car ownership and use, impacts on public transport system, environmental impacts and sustainability is needed.