Graduate Assistant and PhD Candidate
Assistant and PhD candidate at the IGD, from 2016 to 2021, I was part of the group "Cultures and natures of tourism".My dissertation, entitled "Travel, meditation, and self-transformation? An ethnography of Buddhist retreat tourism in the Indian Himalayas" is co-directed by Prof. Raphaël Rousseleau (UNIL, FTSR, IHAR) and Prof. David Picard (UNIL, FGSE, IGD now retired from the University).
My doctoral dissertation explored the phenomenon of so-called spiritual retreat tourism, which has expanded considerably since the 1980s. Through a phenomenological approach to anthropology, my research is based on an ethnographic study of Buddhist retreat tourism practiced in the Indian Himalayas. Through an ethnography of a retreat center and the life trajectories of the participants, I question the logics of isolation, the discourses of self-transformation through travel and the quests for meaning that animate participants who are embedded in globalized lifestyles.
After obtaining a BA of Arts in Ethnology and Science of Communication and Information (ISIC) from the University of Neuchâtel, I completed a Master in Tourism Studies form the University of Lausanne. My master thesis was on "Photographic practices of tourists and digital technologies: The case of the resort of Zermatt".
