Paper Title
Tourism, Ageing Bodies and Chinese Femininity

Abstract
The social sciences began privileging the body, its sensuousness and performativity in people’s everyday life and geographical encounters. However, the presence of body in the tourism-ageing nexus is limited. This research examined the embodied travel experience of 24 Chinese elderly women. A feminist geographical perspective was adopted to analyse tourism narratives and audio-video contents of their meaningful trips. Three themes on how tourism empowers them to engage bodies and reproduce femininity were identified. The findings suggest female elderly travelers’ experiences were constrained within the Chinese evolving ideology on gender, age and femininity and profoundly shaped by their life trajectory, transitional social and family roles and previous life experiences.This research enriches the Chinese feminine discourse on ageing, embodiment and tourism. Keywords - embodiment; elderly woman; feminist geography; femininity; active ageing; well-being