The OE goes ‘home’: Cultural aspects of a working holiday experience

Abstract

In this article we examine cultural aspects of the working holiday experience using the New Zealand Overseas Experience (OE) as a significant and revealing exemplar of this kind of travel. To date, the working holiday experience has been poorly served by tourism and migration literature in general terms, with even less attention paid to cultural aspects of these experiences in relation to both their origin and form. Using archival material and interview data on the OE as an empirical base, we explore in detail the cultural determination of this working holiday experience, the cultural connections that facilitate and reinforce its continuing form, and the hybrid cultural practices of the OE itself. Findings suggest that cultural aspects are central to the working holiday experience. We therefore suggest that the role of culture deserves more explicit attention in both tourism and migration studies that address such working holiday experiences.