Re-framing volunteer tourism: Cultural exchange in Peru and Fiji

Conference presentation: Thomas-Maude, J., & McLennan, S. (2023, October 10-13). Re-framing volunteer tourism: Cultural exchange in Peru and Fiji. ATLAS Annual Conference 2023, Bad Gleichenberg, Austria.

Abstract

This blending of short-term volunteering and development in volunteer tourism has been widely critiqued over the past decade, reflecting a tension between activities that are perceived as morally ‘good’ and activities that are considered to be morally insignificant, and a concern that volunteer tourism that involves volunteers from the global North working in the global South may be a form of (white) saviourism that increases the influence, reach and power of the global North under the guise of ‘making a difference’. As a step towards addressing these inequalities and paradoxes, voluntourism is often now conceived of as an ‘exchange’, whereby both volunteers and providers or recipients benefit from the relationship. This involves a focus on relationships, mutual understanding and respect for different cultures and knowledge systems, while moving away from discourses of ‘doing good’, helping and development.

In this presentation we explore the intersection of voluntourism and cultural exchange through qualitative case studies from Peru and Fiji. The Peruvian study focussed on a small, volunteer English teaching agency that operates in both state and private schools in Lima, while the Fijian study focussed on the Fijian office of an international, for profit, youth volunteering agency. While very different, these agencies and their volunteers emphasised cultural exchange as a key purpose for volunteering, and the studies highlight the ways in which cultural exchange was used as a means of re-framing the role of volunteer tourism and circumventing the language of ‘development’. Both were somewhat successful in this regard and there was potential for these encounters to increase mutual understanding and respect. However, the research also showed that emphasising cultural exchange does not automatically encourage volunteer-tourists to face difficult questions regarding inequalities and differences across cultures, and that the context of significant inequality and difference, alongside the commodification of the volunteering experience, undermines the claims to equal exchange. The studies therefore raise some significant questions about justice, equity, and cultural understanding and we argue that voluntourism, when undertaken – as it often is – by volunteers from the global North working in the global South remains a highly inequitable, neo-colonial practice. Reframing volunteer tourism as cultural exchange may further mask and even perpetuate this injustice and inequality.

Read more: McLennan, S. & Thomas-Maude, J. (2023). Othering or authenticity: Volunteer tourism and cultural exchange. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2023.06.020

Thomas-Maude, J., McLennan, S., & Walters, V. (2021). Cultural exchange during English-Language Voluntourism (EVT) in Lima, Peru: A postcolonial analysis. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1991802

McLennan, S. J. (2019). Global encounters: Voluntourism, development and global citizenship in Fiji. The Geographical Journal, 185(3), 338-351. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12318 

Thomas-Maude, J. (2019). “They come because they know the teachers are gringos” : A post-colonial exploration of the perceived value of volunteer English teaching in Lima, Peru [Masters Thesis, Massey University]. https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/15743