Trudie Walters

• PhD
• Senior Lecturer at Lincoln University

The rising of the Matariki constellation (also known as Pleiades) is a special time for Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand for remembering the dead, celebrating the present, and preparing the ground for the coming year. Its observation had all but ceased by 1940, but it has experienced a resurgence since the 1990s. Previous longitudinal research into me...

This exploratory study contributes to the leisure studies literature in three main ways: through foregrounding the emotionality of intellectually disabled people, an under-represented group within the context of events; through focusing on an arts festival, a form of event overlooked in comparison to other commonly studied types of events; and fina...

Scoping reviews are instrumental for synthesizing evidence and mapping research landscapes, but effective stakeholder engagement is also essential to ensure their relevance to both practice and policy. Despite this importance, stakeholder engagement in scoping reviews within leisure and tourism has been limited. This methodological paper presents t...

This note reviews the wellbeing research published in Event Management since 2000. It starts by discussing what is meant by wellbeing, then presents an analysis of themes and trends centred around questions of whose wellbeing, what wellbeing, and how to approach wellbeing. Interest in the topic has increased in the last five years. A range of theor...

Creative research methods refers to more than qualitative, arts-based methods, extending to thinking creatively about methodology and the ethics of research practice. There is no doubt that research must be carried out ethically and with integrity. Understandably, academic researchers around the world are almost universally required to complete an...

Conferences are invaluable for career progression, offering unique opportunities for networking, collaboration, and learning. However, there are challenges associated with the traditional in-person conference format. For example, there is a significant ecological impact from attendees’ travel behaviour, and there are social inequities in conference...

Purpose Attending academic conferences is important for career progression. However, conferences can be experienced as exclusionary by historically marginalised groups. Non-attendance through exclusionary event design thus has far-reaching consequences, which is a social and structural justice issue. This research therefore aims to shine a light on...

We present the findings from our recent research publication of the same name. If you would like to know more, please request a copy of that publication from one of us!

Many studies have investigated the benefits and drawbacks of social media, but the impact it has on amateur sports participants who use it as part of their practice has been largely overlooked. This study addresses this gap, investigating the impacts of social media on the mental health of women participating in amateur sport activities – specifica...

Local governments frequently host or support multicultural festivals and events, viewing them as a community development tool that facilitates the encountering of diversity in a safe environment, and demonstrates a welcoming and inclusive community (Duffy et al., 2019). However, there are challenges in ascribing such community building goals to the...

The biennial Christchurch Arts Festival in New Zealand was established in 1965 but in 2021 was put on hold indefinitely after the 2019 festival suffered a(nother) significant loss. The Christchurch Arts Festival was initially established to help the city promote a sense of prestige premised on what the organisers saw as the superior cultural capita...

This book celebrates and builds on Alan Clarke (1956–2021) and Allan Jepson’s 2015 book Exploring Community Festivals and Events. It showcases how far the study of community festivals and events has come in the intervening years, and in so doing it is a response to recent calls for researchers to take a more critical approach to event studies. Thi...

Purpose Place-based community events fulfil important functions, internally and externally. They provide opportunities for people from diverse communities and cultures to encounter each other, to participate in pleasurable activities in convivial settings and to develop mutual understanding. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value of...

Arts festivals have existed for centuries. Those that focused on the ‘high arts’ (opera, theatre, ballet, orchestral music) were the domain of the social elite. Until recently, however, the paradoxical nature of elitism in community arts festivals has been largely neglected by scholars. This longitudinal research sought to investigate the practices...

Disabled people have a fundamental human right to leisure that contributes to their wellbeing, to be able to participate in a meaningful way in cultural activities such as arts events. For decades, the arts have been viewed as a vehicle for empowerment, and arts programmes have been shown to provide long-lasting benefits. Arts events, though, with...

An effective science system needs to provide expertise and knowledge to respond to societal issues in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2022 the government released the white paper Te Ara Paerangi: future pathways to outline a vision for a future science system. This research explores how mission-led science has operated through the National Science Challen...

Purpose - This exploratory study seeks to understand whether an arts event designed with/by/for disabled people (the InterACT Disability Arts Festival in New Zealand) has the potential to create revolutionary futures, defined as those which help determine new paths, make the future less fearsome and allow more positive outcomes. Design/methodolog...

The aim of this chapter is to emphasise the importance of archival material and how, despite its secondary nature, it is capable of providing first-hand information for researchers. By providing a variety of examples from tourism, hospitality and leisure, this chapter demonstrates how this underused data can be a valuable resource for these areas o...

Purpose - This paper explores mental wellbeing in the events industry. We argue that mental wellbeing is often difficult to achieve in the stressful and deadline-driven events industry, and that better awareness and understanding of specific actions for employees to flourish at work is needed. Design/methodology/approach - We used in-depth semi-st...

Volunteering practices have largely drawn on theories based on Eurocentric conceptualizations. The dominant Eurocentric models of volunteering, as a significant leisure experience, have served to marginalize other definitions and practices. Thus, this paper argues that, while the Eurocentric conceptualization provides a useful framework to understa...

Business events are typically considered and researched as events that take place in cities and major urban centres; business events in rural locations have been largely overlooked in the literature. While research has been carried out on the challenges faced by rural small business owners, on women in the agricultural sector in rural areas, and on...

Most research into human resource management offers best practice strategies but often assumes that employees and organisations are homogenous. The events industry is fundamentally different: it is a stressful, fast-paced, competitive, deadline-driven industry with unsociable working hours. HRM in events currently adopts a short-term and operationa...

This paper aims to conceptualize the pilgrimage and tourism relationship in the contemporary world. As the boundaries between pilgrimage and tourism have become blurred, there is a need to find a more holistic way to understand the nuances of the pilgrimage-tourism relationship. This conceptual paper argues that pilgrimage offers a stage for rejuve...

International volunteering has typically been conceived as a Western sociocultural phenomenon. Within this paper, we aim to apply a non-Western lens to the development of a conceptual framework, through which to consider an alternative perspective on international volunteering. We highlight how, increasingly, non-Western countries are a place that...

This research provides a nuanced understanding of the contribution of cultural events to subjective well-being for ethnic minority migrant communities, who often face significant challenges in their new lives. The paper investigates how the intersection of sense of community and subjective well-being function in this context. It focuses on the Hind...

Purpose: In this paper we seek to understand how academic conferences [re]produce deeply embedded gendered patterns of interaction and informal norms within the business disciplines. Design/Methodology/Approach: Drawing on Acker’s (2012) established and updated theory of gendered organisations, we focus on the role of academic conferences in the re...

In 2018, the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand launched the Five Ways to Wellbeing, consisting of five actions adapted from those first created by the New Economic Foundation. These actions are designed to improve physical, psychological and sociological wellbeing in everyday life. They are: give; be active; keep learning; take notice; and co...

Multicultural festivals are more than a form of leisure and entertainment for the general public – they are often used as tools to educate the wider population about the culture of ethnic minority groups, promoting understanding and increasing tolerance of diversity. It has been argued that the ways in which multicultural events are represented in...

Purpose The importance of events for marginalised groups has largely been overlooked within tourism, hospitality and event studies. The purpose of this study is to address this gap, emphasising the positive outcomes of power relationships rather than the negative, which have traditionally been the focus in event studies. Design/methodology/approac...

Purpose Gender inequality is evident in many academic practices, but research has often focused on the male-dominated science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. This study responds to calls for more work in the business disciplines which have been overlooked by comparison and focuses on academic conferences as a higher educatio...

This book is the first to take an in-depth examination of events and well-being and responds to recent calls for researchers to take a more critical approach to event studies. Well-being has been the subject of academic research for some time now, across a diverse range of discipline areas such as music, the arts, sport, tourism, economics, interio...

This paper utilises family leisure photographs to examine the changing position of children within families in New Zealand. Photographs are a useful lens for addressing such issues, as they can be interpreted as ways of understanding human life. They document aspects of lives that we may be unable to see easily via other sources. Over one hundred y...

The aim of this paper is to investigate how gender roles around family leisure food provisions have changed over time. To do this, family photographs depicting a variety of family leisure food provisions in New Zealand over the last 100 years were analysed. Photographs are a useful lens for addressing such issues. They document aspects of lives tha...

Ownership of a second home for the purpose of leisure is common in a number of countries, yet the ‘leisure’ aspect of ownership has seldom been critically examined. This chapter addresses this gap through a case study of a small lakeside second home community in a remote South Island location in New Zealand. Specifically, it asks, “How are notions...

Submission to the Parliament of Victoria for their Inquiry into Environmental Infrastructure for Growing Populations

Recognizing the limited research on social aspects of sustainability in event studies, this paper seeks to understand how multicultural festivals promote and deliver social sustainability through the facilitation of multiple psychological sense of community for attendees. By considering refugees and ethnic minority immigrants, it also addresses the...

This paper utilizes family leisure photographs to examine New Zealand society’s changing representations of fatherhood. Photographs are a useful lens for addressing such issues, as they can be interpreted as ways of understanding human life. They document sociological aspects of lives that we are unable to see easily from other sources. Over 100 ye...

Research has been carried out on challenges faced by rural small business owners, and on women in the agricultural sector in rural areas. Other studies have found that festivals and other community events often have beneficial social outcomes, and can contribute to building and supporting the rural communities that host them. However, there is a si...

This paper cultivates an approach to leisure scholarship which is more responsive to Indigenous peoples and responsibilities of translation. This study is grounded within kaupapa Māori, an Indigenous perspective specific to Aotearoa New Zealand that privileges Māori epistemology. We apply this to a longitudinal analysis of media representations of...

Despite the recognised benefits of cultural festivals, it is still unclear how they may assist marginalised groups in mitigating the adverse effects of marginalisation. Informed by the Counterspace Framework, this paper seeks to address the gap at the nexus of leisure, events and marginalisation by considering the case of the New Beginnings Festiva...

This paper cultivates an approach to leisure scholarship which is more responsive to Indigenous peoples and responsibilities of translation. This study is grounded within kaupapa Māori, an Indigenous perspective specific to Aotearoa New Zealand that privileges Māori epistemology. We apply this to a longitudinal analysis of media representations of...

This paper presents preliminary findings from a year-long New Zealand-based study into the significant contribution events make to the lives of marginalised people, and how they are represented in the media. Marginalised groups and communities have a right to meaningful leisure experiences that contribute to their social well-being and quality of l...

Gender inequality within academia has largely been a focus of attention in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) discipline areas, highlighting a deeply entrenched masculine culture, under-representation of women in the workforce, as well as in undergraduate degree programmes and faculty positions. In contrast, the relative la...

In contrast to an inherited or repurposed second home, owners are able to stipulate how their leisure practices are catered for when they employ an architect to design their second home. This longitudinal study examines gendered experiences and practices of leisure at architect designed second homes in New Zealand, through an analysis of written an...

From the Olympic Games to the local community street party, festivals and events are inherently visual in nature. Despite this, there is limited research that interrogates this at any scale of event and especially as it relates to notions of place. Many events are used to create and/or maintain a destination image; they are said to ‘represent’ plac...

This book is the first to take an in-depth examination of marginalisation and events. Marginalisation has been the subject of academic research for some time now. For example, marginalisation and exclusion have been identified as problematic in fields as diverse as geography, public health, education and media studies. However, little research has...

A diverse range of events can be conceptualised as being at/for/in the margins or as marginal. They may include events in/for groups or communities marginalised based on race, gender, religion, [dis]ability, ethnicity, citizenship status and/or income, or a combination thereof. They may be held in geographically isolated places and as such be on th...

Individuals and communities may be/feel marginalised in a variety of ways and for a number of reasons, including socio-economic status, ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, family status, religions and/or age. These are not discrete categories however, and the intersectionality of factors is acknowledged; individuals have multiple identities which m...

Academic conferences are important fora for disseminating knowledge, learning and meeting like-minded scholars in one’s field. They provide a platform for vital networking and enhance both reputation and visibility, which are shown to be important for academic success. However, significant issues remain around accessibility, diversity and inclusion...

Local governments make a significant annual investment in arts and cultural development programmes. However, the practicalities of measuring the return on this investment have been largely overlooked by researchers, and investigations into return on investment have frequently focused on the economic return. Here, it is argued that intrinsic social...

The objective of this paper is to challenge three implicit assumptions about residents' engagement with city branding: first, that disengaged residents may not be attached to their place; second, that residents' desire engagement with official place branding; and third, that residents perceive place branding is appropriate for their city. In-depth...

Purpose Tourism and hospitality research is frequently cross language in nature; yet, English is the most used language to disseminate research findings. The use of thematic analysis is increasing; yet, critical discussions of the implications of the timing of translation when applying this method are rare. The purpose of this study is to present...

Purpose Purpose: To date, the importance of smaller, local community events in the place branding process has been overlooked in the place branding and event studies literature – yet they are recognised as a means of increasing the attractiveness of a place for residents, through building a sense of community and contributing to quality of life. T...

The past decade has seen increasing competition between graduates for jobs, and universities are now frequently scrutinised and evaluated on their graduate employment success rates. This study reports on student perceptions of a revised event management course designed to enhance graduate employability through the use of experiential learning, base...

Planned events can be considered as texts, conveying and interpreting the social order of a community. Academic conferences and conventions also represent a community; they convey and interpret the academic community's social order. This paper turns the spotlight on planned events in tourism, hospitality, leisure and event studies and scrutinises g...

Introduction Through its ability to convey meaning and signal wealth, luxury has long been synonymous with conspicuous consumption (Eckhardt et al., 2015). This paper explores the changing patterns of conspicuous consumption through an examination of media representations of luxury in second homes-arguably a form of conspicuous consumption in and o...

Using New Zealand as a case study, this paper turns a historical gaze to the development of second home practices, arguing that it is not possible to fully understand changes in second home practice through a narrow focus on housing policy. Rather, as second homes reflect the social, political, economic and cultural contexts in which they are situa...

Forms of street art have been embraced by local government authorities around the world as a strategy to foster urban tourism. Often considered as a public good and a vehicle to beautify and revitalise neglected parts of the city, the potentially conflicting roles of street art as a vehicle for artistic expression and source of local pride and sens...

The past decade has seen increasing competition between graduates for jobs, and universities are now frequently scrutinised and evaluated on their graduate employment success rates. This study reports on student perceptions of a revised event management course designed to enhance graduate employability through the use of experiential learning, base...

Many studies have examined the benefits of second home ownership (here taken to mean those used primarily for the purpose of leisure and recreation rather than investment), and references to such second homes as sanctuaries and places of physical and psychological rejuvenation are common. This is frequently attributed to the physical landscape and...

This investigation considers the participation of children, adolescents and young adults in nature-based recreation. We draw upon the recreation narratives of forty-seven adult recreationists in the activities of tramping, angling, hunting and mountaineering, obtained from in-depth interviews. In particular, the study considers the transitions from...

This research note uses a case study approach to illustrate when and how to apply thematic analysis as a tool to interpret empirical material in tourism research and suggests a variety of research contexts in which its use may be appropriate. The case study demonstrates the value of thematic analysis in understanding and unpacking a body of rich, d...

International, national, state and regional tourism organisations are directing marketing efforts at emergent outbound markets. The diversity of emerging and existing markets present issues for resource- challenged regional tourism destinations. This dual phase comparative study focuses on two regional destinations: Sunshine Coast, Australia (Phase...

This paper provides a critical longitudinal analysis of media representations of luxury in second homes in New Zealand and is designed to assess the validity of traditional definitions of second homes as anti-consumerist and the identification of ‘luxury’ second homes as a recent phenomenon. Using a thematic analysis of Home New Zealand magazine si...

New Zealanders have a long history of second home ownership, and the second home landscape is an important part of the New Zealand culture. Traditional second homes are known colloquially as the ‘bach’ or ‘crib’, and it is part of the New Zealand psyche to ‘escape to the bach’ for the weekend, especially over the summer months. However, since the 1...

Second homes in New Zealand have a long history and are an important part of the New Zealand culture. Increasingly over the last few decades, the popular media has constructed ownership of the traditional second home, or ‘bach’, and the associated lifestyle, as democratic and as such, the antithesis of luxury. This paper provides a new perspective...