At first glance, it really does
seem like a win-win situation. People (usually our age) who can afford the time
and money go to developing countries to help those less fortunate—through
teaching English, building orphanages, or digging wells. At the end of three or
four weeks, the well-meaning Westerners have made a tangible contribution to a
community that really needed it, as well as getting to experience a culture
very different from their own. Everyone’s happy. But as the popularity of
“voluntourism” has risen, and, in turn, very lucrative industry has developed over
the past 20 years, people are beginning to wonder if this new brand of travel
is actually helping, or if it is just creating more problems.
Upon closer examination,
voluntourism can create some serious issues for the people who it is supposed
to help. One aspect is addressed in the New York Times Debate “Can Voluntourism
Make a Difference?” Pippa Biddle focuses on the idea that while many people
have good intentions, that doesn’t mean that they are qualified to actually be
a teacher or a carpenter. I witnessed this myself when I went on a six-week
trip to Phapang, a small village in Northern Thailand. We were there to teach
English to K-9 kids, some of whom we were only older than by two or three years.
We went there under the impression that, since we spoke English, we would be
able to teach it effectively. What we ended up doing were repetitive lessons
and games about animals, colors, transportation, and weather. This idea that we
were de facto qualified to teach leads me to my main issue with voluntourism as
a whole—the idea that, since we are from a more developed country, we
automatically know better than those who are not. This issue has been common
throughout history, and can be seen as far back as Columbus’ treatment of the
Native Americans when he first encountered America. This assumption creates
inherent barriers in our interactions with other cultures and is reminisce of
colonial attitudes (addressed in “The End of Poverty).
I was reminded of the phenomenon of
voluntourism when we started talking about global stratification. Voluntourism
lends itself to stratification in the assumed subordination of “third-world”
countries that are desperately in need of our (wealthy Westerners) help. It
ingrains the belief that the US is the only country in the world that is
capable of helping others, when in reality our “help” comes in the form of
high-interest loans and imposed capitalism. This attitude creates an imbalance
that cannot be easily overcome—we see developing countries as pitied out-groups
that can never be our equals on the world stage.
There is also an argument to be
made for the loss of cultural identity that can come from Westerners constantly
coming up with “solutions” to intra-cultural problems they may not fully
understand. The idea that globalization is turning the world into one big
melting pot is a prominent one, and voluntourism is not solely to blame,
although it is definitely a factor.
On
the other hand, volunteering is an important resource that can be utilized to
create positive changes in a world where access to resources is a precious
commodity. How can we reconcile the impositions of culture and the assumption
of dominance with the very real need for aid and assistance in our modern
world?
Interesting articles:
- http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2014/07/31/336600290/as-volunteerism-explodes-in-popularity-whos-it-helping-most
- http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/04/29/can-voluntourism-make-a-difference/poverty-as-a-tourist-attraction
- http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/going-the-distance-february-2004http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/going-the-distance-february-2004
I think poverty tourism does not do anything to fix social problems (inequality etc). It's very important to hear and listen to what the community wants and act upon their needs before using assumptions. I know you were going but did you ever wonder during/after/prior the trip "Does this community need their children to learn English?"
ReplyDeleteAlso this blog post reminded me of this interesting TED talk:https://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someone_shut_up_and_listen?language=en
This post relates to some of the concepts we have talked in class regarding the role of the sociological researcher. Many may question what justification a researcher might have to enter an area (sometimes that is impoverished) and conduct research on a group of people or on a particular social issue. While the research is presumed to be consensual with the "researched", it does raise an interesting question on the purpose of the research. Is the researcher there only to promote themselves by drawing off of the interesting stories of the citizens being researched? Is the researcher performing radical empathy?
ReplyDeleteMy hope is that the researcher strives for more than just the renown of doing research when they enter such an area. By giving voice to the researched people, whether in the researcher's classroom or publications, a generation of students or social activists can become educated and interested in changing the circumstances of the people being researched and promote equality (whether economic or social) within that area.
This post stands out to me because I have experience with 'voluntourism.' Two summers ago I traveled to Nicaragua to help build a house for a family in need. As far as this kind of thing goes, I think the organization I went with was one of the better ones. It hired local masons to actually build the house, and we, the volunteers, helped. It became pretty clear to us on the first day that the masons were totally capable of building the house without us - in fact, our slow pace may have even hindered their progress. We realized that this experience was much more for our benefit than for theirs. It was a wonderful experience and I'm glad I did it, but it did feel a bit self-congratulatory. I think if volunteers can go in and actually do things they're good at, it would be more effective. A group of 17-year-old girls knows nothing about building houses, and I think our skills could have come in handy more elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteTo build on Ally's comment, I think it is true that many people who engage in voluntourism may be doing it more for themselves, to get the experience. A friend of mine in high school traveled to Laos to help build a school and had a similar experience. She also noted that upon returning, the majority of the other American high school students that were there with her immediately posted a lot of pictures of their experience to Facebook and got a lot of praise for volunteering. This reminds me of "slacktivism" where it seems that the people who engaged in voluntourism want to look like they are a good person, fulfilling their "duty" as an American to help less fortunate countries, even if their help wasn't necessary for building the school.
ReplyDeleteI really applaud you for writing this article. The harmful affects of voluntourism is something that I have struggled with for a long time. I, myself, have never actually gone on a service trip but working in the humanitarian sector is something that I have always been interested in. It was not until only a few years ago that I realized that volunteering can often go wrong, and I am still looking for better outlets to help people in need. I am part of an organization here at Lewis & Clark called BuildOn, which isn't a perfect organization but like Ally said, I don't think it is as bad as say the corruption in orphanage volunteering. For example, rather than going into complex communities and building things that may or may not be needed without consent, BuildOn only builds schools in places where the community specifically asks for them. In addition, the community takes on the primary responsibility of building the school, BuildOn simply provides the funds for them to do so. The organization also doesn't make it a secret that going abroad to help in building the school is a two-sided encounter. Going abroad is supposed to help the "volunteers" gain as much insight about the community as it is supposed to be about helping them. I am excited to go abroad to Nicaragua to learn a lot about the complexities of rural Nicaraguan culture, I think that the experience will give me a broader sense of the world, and better ways in which we can make a difference in the future.
ReplyDeleteFor my anthropology class we read about Refugees from Rwanda and how the voluntourism campaigns put on by charities actually hurt the refugees instead of helping them. They were only used for pictures, the more hurt and pitiful a refugee looked, the more they were considered a real refugee. Charities didn't care what these people had to say about their experiences, they just wanted the refugee look on their posters and then they did all the talking. By silencing the refugees's voices we can't know how to truly help them. Voluntourism has made charity work more about the volunteer than about the people who are actually in need of help which is counterproductive.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very important issue, and one which is not often enough addressed. Reading your article I couldn't help but think of an admittedly likely anecdotal but still relevant story I came across about this same problem. Addressing voluntourism in Costa Rica, a very popular spot for such low-commitment cosmetic activism, the example given was of a particular program building schools for impoverished communities. Every day, the Costa Rican staffers would wake up before the volunteers, get all the tools, materials, and the actual sight ready for the Americans to work on. The volunteers would put cinderblocks in place during the day, and after dark, the same Costa Rican workers would come in and disassemble the skeleton of a school that had been constructed, so that the next day's group could get to come in and build the school again. This just illustrates the same idea of how these types of charity don't end up benefitting their supposed recipients.
ReplyDelete