'Creating a room of one's own': French farm women, agritourism and the pursuit of empowerment

This paper explores how women use farm tourism as a vehicle for empowerment within the context of family farm agriculture. Drawing upon qualitative data of a farm women's agritourism network in southern France, we show that farm tourism enables women to cultivate personal empowerment strategies. Farm tourism allows women the opportunity to create a physical space for autonomy and individual creativity where they can pursue personal goals and overcome social isolation; in this way, it advances the process of empowerment. However, the process of empowerment is not without challenge. We demonstrate how the persistence of a patriarchal culture informed by an agrarian ideology can complicate this process. This study suggests that farm tourism permits women the possibility for constructing autonomous objectives which can lead to empowerment to the extent that they are acceptable to males and refrain from impeding male-led farming activity.