Unconscious Bias and Travel: Episode 231 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

I’m confident that most people who listen to The Thoughtful Travel Podcast would like to consider themselves relatively free of prejudice and bias, especially in matters of race. But there’s a difference between consciously striving to be unprejudiced, and having an underlying unconscious bias that you’ve unwittingly acquired from experiences in life. I know (and I discuss in this episode) that I can have an unconscious bias brought on by lack of experience or exposure – something that travel can help significantly to correct.

Anyway, I hope you find this topic of unconscious bias as fascinating as I do – enjoy!

Show notes: Episode 231 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

Unconscious Bias and Travel

We all have some kind of unconscious bias – or a few! – some stereotypes or misconceptions that we think deep down, even if in our conscious minds we don’t think we do. It’s human nature, but yet another marvellous part of travelling is it often helps us identify and confront these unconscious biases, and the examples from the guests in Episode 231 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast demonstrate this perfectly.

First up, I chat with Tonya Fitzpatrick who first tells me one of her own experiences in recognising and confronting an unconscious bias, and then explains another example from a traveller she’d interviewed on her own podcast.

I then speak with Pam Mandel, who’s travelled more than usual within her home country of the United States in the past few years, and found she also needed to confront and overcome some unconscious biases about her homeland.

Links:

• Tonya Fitzpatrick of World Footprints
• Pam Mandel of Nerd’s Eye View
• Pam’s book The Same River Twice
• Pam’s project The Statesider  
• Harvard’s Implicit Association Test
• Article critiquing the IAT 
• Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers

You might also like:

The Thoughtful Travel Podcast: Episode 13 – Taking it Slow: Travelling to Feel Like a Local The Thoughtful Travel Podcast: Episode 20 – English Names, Widows and PNG in the 1950s The Thoughtful Travel Podcast: Episode 22 – Memorable Travel Moments: Hungry Porcupines and More How to be Bilingual – Episode 26 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast