Synopsis: My creative project consists of an image I constructed in Photoshop, in the style of a collage. All images were taken from free-use sources. The image depicts a white woman with a backpack and a camera behind a globe with text surrounding her and crosses over her head. Her comments are meant to resemble conversations I have heard peers and friends say in regard to ‘voluntourism’. I grew up in a predominantly white, middle/upper-class area in the United States, and I have always been interested in how white women travel to ‘third-world’ countries (typically through a church trip or other religious organization) with ‘feminist agendas’ to volunteer in foreign towns and cities.
My piece is meant to critique and reflect this phenomenon, in that often voluntourism is colonial, imperialist, condescending, insensitive, and self-serving. In my high school traveling on a mission trip was seen as almost a popular, trendy thing to do that made white women (and men) feel better about themselves while simply using other people’s struggles as a tool to do so. I wanted to critique the true intentions behind work like this.
Rationale:
The voyeuristic nature of a lot of voluntourism reflects privileged Western attitudes. This piece was meant to reflect how (from my own personal experience) white women have used mission trips as a way to feel selfless and transnational. Afterwards they still hold onto their hegemonic, racist, colonial ways of thinking, even when often coming face-to-face with violence and poverty caused by colonialism and globalization. I also intended this to comment on how white Westerners go to ‘third-world’, racialized countries in pursuit of ‘spiritual and cultural enlightenment’, co-opt and simplify the cultures of the countries they visit, and then claim it for their own once returning to the West.
This topic is important in concerning transnational feminisms because voluntourism reflects how some Western countries approach foreign aid: voyeuristic, hegemonic, not culturally sensitive, and generalizing. Additionally, this piece critiques white, Western feminism and how it upholds colonialism.
Keywords: neoliberalism, racism, tourism, Christianity, privilege, volunteering
Author: Kaelin Blanchard
Leading up to the summer season this post is a helpful reminder for privileged, middle-class young people from North America on how to participate in volunteer work and tourism in an ethical and respectful way. Keeping in mind that tourism is entrenched in global economies and is a core principle in a neoliberal world, I would like to know what the author has to offer when considering solution-based actions for voluntourists to practice consent, establish positionalities, and operate in a culturally appropriate manner while travelling internationally? I agree that religious groups who engage in voluntourism missions must first consider who is benefitting from these missions. In the interest of propelling transnational feminist praxis, it may be more productive to recommend…
I have myself met a lot of white female and male voluntarists and I have to say that it’s not a racially white phenomenon it is a matter of privilege. I know non-white friends that engage in such programs and they enter from a very privileged position and continue to grow from the experience through travel scholarships and such. What is truly heartbreaking is the level of narcissist obliviousness with which you view the world to stay so unaffected by it. The most memorable talk I had about this topic was with an elderly white Canadian teacher, she had just returned from a year volunteering in Nigeria She was fairly smart, and talked to me about the terrible management, lack…