Fall 2025 Colloquium Series: Research as principled engagement

Fall 2025 Colloquium Series

Research as principled engagement: Reflections on two decades of participatory action research on tourism microentrepreneurship

In this presentation, Duarte B. Morais of NC State University reviews two decades of scholarship grounded in reciprocal collaboration with tourism microentrepreneurs and destination communities. The People-First Tourism Lab at NC State University has developed and adapted a participatory methodology that integrates critical pedagogy, mixed methods, and social entrepreneurship to examine the under-studied domain of tourism microentrepreneurship and to foster endogenous community development.

Morais will summarize key findings from this body of work concerning tourism microentrepreneurs’ motivations, self-determination, social capital, and self-representation. The presentation concludes with an invitation to reflect on how scholar–practitioner–activists can influence knowledge creation and instigate, through their practice, transformative change toward a more equitable world.

This event is free and open to the public. For disability accomodations, contact mlreaga2@uncg.edu / 336.334.5388