Abstract
Volunteer tourism (or voluntourism) refers to the practice of traveling to provide aid, often to socio-economically marginalized countries. While many scholars have analyzed the negative consequences of interpersonal voluntourist-host community interactions, few have examined the online consequences of voluntourism. Indeed, despite social media platforms increasingly facilitating the digital exhibition of impoverished and war-torn communities across the world, few scholars have examined the ways in which voluntourists—seeking to provide aid to these communities—engage in digital exhibition. In this study, we focus on social media as a central site where voluntourists from “Western” countries engage in digital exhibitionism to share and reflect on their experiences and websites as central sites for voluntourist organizations to engage in a similar practice as a tool in the recruitment of voluntourists. To understand the discursive and promotional strategies organizations use to recruit voluntourists and the ways in which voluntourists present their experiences and host communities online, we analyze public posts, hashtags, and websites related to voluntourism across social media platforms. We find these online interactions reproduce relationships of colonial domination in a postcolonial world, as the digital practices of voluntourist organizations and voluntourists themselves practice “othering” through the (re)production of white savior narratives. Our findings indicate voluntourists and their organizations must critically interrogate their (un)ethical online practices whilst reckoning with the colonial legacy of voluntourism.
Presenters
Cinthia Romo AlbaStudent, PhD, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, United States Garrett Pekarek
Student, PhD, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Critical Issues in Tourism and Leisure Studies
KEYWORDS
Volunteers, Tourism, White Saviorism, Colonialism, Digital Analysis
