The Red Riviera: Gender, Toursim and Postsocialism on the Black Sea by Kristen Ghodsee (review)

Abstract

!94 SEER, 86, I, 2008 Ghodsee, Kristen. The Red Riviera: Gender,Toursim and Postsocialism on the Black Sea. Next Wave: New Directions inWomens' Studies. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2005. xii + 226 pp. Illustrations.Appendices. Notes. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. ?14.95 (paperback). The Red Riviera is an absorbing, very well-written book which explores the social impact of transition in Bulgaria by focusing on women's employment in holiday resorts. Ghodsee's primary sources are her own observations during fourteen months of residence in Bulgaria, interviews with tourism workers and officials, and over 1500 written questionnaires. Ghodsee is a Bulgarian speaker married to a Bulgarian, and her work displays the insightsof both the insider and the outsider. Her own findings are backed up with a great deal of information about socio-economic trends inBulgaria, with plenty of focus on theCommunist period as well as the 1990s.Hence the content of the book is actually quite broad, covering issues such as the development of Bulgarian tourism within the context of the command economy, the post-Communist labour market, privatization, crime and, most significantly, gender relations and roles. Ghodsee demonstrates that, contrary to prevailing stereotypes, not all women are 'losers' of transition. In Bulgaria, as in other post-Communist countries, many formerly feminine, low-status professions, such as banking and medicine, are now popular among men. However, employment in tourism remains highly feminized. As one of the interviewees comments about her husband: A man has toomuch pride. Boyan would never clean a toilet or make a bed. Not in his own house and certainly not in a hotel. That is a woman's job' (p. no). The women interviewed seemed to regard looking after tourists as an extension of their maternal role. And yet, paradoxically, hotel jobs are not regarded as having low status.As Ghodsee points out, theAnglo American reader needs to put aside preconceptions about the status attached to occupations such as chambermaid or waiter. It is true that wages are not high, but by investigating other dimensions of these workers' livelihoods ? such as tipping and informally charging foreigners more ? Ghodsee estab lishes that this is actually lucrative work. In a number of cases the women interviewed were supporting semi-employed husbands and parents or in-laws as well as their own children. While husbands were sitting at home worrying about the loss of theirbreadwinner role, thewives were not only doing a job which brought inmoney but which they enjoyed and regarded as an escape from the stresses of everyday existence. As one interviewee pointed out, 'Tourism is good for the psyche. You are surrounded by happy children and sunny days' (p. 64). Hence thewomen are portrayed as survivors both materially and psychologically. Most importantly, however, Ghodsee shows how this is high-status work because thewomen who do it are so well-qualified. In the Communist era, when access by foreigners, especially Westerners, was highly restricted in Bulgaria, touristworkers were selected carefully, not just for their political reliability but also for their education and intelligence. These women are still active in the labour force. Building on Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, and Gil, Szelenyi and Townsley's theory of 'trajectory adjustment', Ghodsee argues that women REVIEWS !95 employed in tourism before 1989 entered the transition period with valuable cultural capital in the form of their knowledge of foreign languages and ways of doing things. They also had economic capital (hard currency savings) and social capital (useful acquaintances) which enabled them to survive the hardships of the initial transition period and in some cases to start up their own businesses. There is stillfierce competion for jobs and foreign language knowledge is still essential, even for maids. However, Ghodsee points out that in today's Bulgaria younger women cannot depend on cultural capital alone. Social and economic capital are essential. She tells the storyof a workshop organized by an NGO to encourage women to set up small businesses. Ghodsee's middle aged interviewee, Prolet, explains at length about how she used her contacts to set up in business in the early 1990s but when a woman in the audience asks 'Do you think it ispossible for a woman likeme to starta...