Couch Squatting Nabs Holy Cross Prof. Fulbright Funding

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Friday, April 20, 2012

GoLocalWorcester Lifestyle Team

A Holy Cross professor’s study of couch surfing and mobile tourism trends has landed her a Core Fulbright Scholar grant to teach on the subject at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland.

Jennie Germann Molz, assistant professor of sociology, received the grant to lead a course on the cultural study of tourism and conduct research on sustainable hospitality and tourist dwelling. The grant is designed as a point of collaboration with research currently underway at the University of Lapland. As a Fulbright Core scholar, Germann Molz will pursue a qualitative research project titled "Socially Sustainable Tourism: Informal Economies of Hospitality in Finnish Lapland."

While in Finland, she will explore the informal economics of hospitality and tourist dwelling that characterize couch surfing encounters. Her empirical research focuses on the online hospitality exchange site CouchSurfing.org, a tool that places travelers with host families instead of in hotels. The practice of couch surfing encourages travelers to become immersed in their host’s culture instead of remaining isolated in hotels, says Germann Moz.

"I plan to explore how hospitality is produced and consumed by couch surfers, how hosts and guests 'host' one another in ways that potentially challenge conventional power structures associated with hospitality, and how they 'dwell' together in way that reconstitute the home as a space of familiarity and difference,” she notes. “More broadly, I ask how the informal arrangements of couch surfing might inform socially sustainable commercial hospitality initiatives in the Finnish tourism context."

As one of approximately 1,100 U.S. faculty and professionals chosen to participate in the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program in 2012-13, Germann Molz will leave in January for the five-month commitment. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.

Germann Molz’s husband and son will join her on the overseas assignment. After completing the program, she is already planning ways to incorporate her findings back into the classroom – and brushing up on her language skills.

“I’m looking forward to implementing modules in my courses that focus on tourism in the Arctic region,” she says. “I’m also studying Finnish like crazy.”