Hopefully, hope for volunteer tourism

Similar to the issues with foreign aid, volunteer tourism may sound positive, but is highly complex and not without many flaws. As I do not identify as a consequentialist, the arguments to whether or not volunteer tourism is doing any actual good is less important than the deontological implications of volunteer tourism. I think the most intriguing arguments made in these pieces is about the unequal caring or responsibility relationships that can be propagated by volunteer tourism. I feel like the root of the problems that can result from volunteer tourism is the lack of respect and systems of inequality that it can perpetuate. That being said, and similar to the articles we read, I truly hope that doesn’t mean that there is no right way to create relationships of respect with people of different socioeconomic status (or any positionality for that matter)- and I do believe that this is possible, and necessary for living in our globalized world. Thus, I agree with the acknowledgement made by Zakaria in “The White Tourists’ Burden”, that even though volunteer tourism has many flaws, the educational component through the cultural exchange should be promoted rather than thrown away. I believe that for volunteer tourism to be a positive exchange, the projects must come from the community and be centered on what they need you to do, rather than what you want to do for them. This lends itself to the idea of the tourist being culturally sensitive, flexible, and realistic to the needs of the community and the actual (most likely minimal) contributions that the tourist can truly make.

The volunteer tourist (and perhaps volunteers more generally speaking), is in all likelihood able to do the trip and volunteer due to privilege. I think it is necessary that volunteer tourists recognize this, but I don’t believe it should be the reason for going. As I stated earlier, I think the importance from acts such as this are from the exposure both parties have to one another. Still, I am not 100% sure how to go about learning from other people in an entirely unproblematic way. However, I do not way to let the fact that I know I have privilege stop me from something I deem important- learning about, empathizing with, and being able to do work more effectively in a global community through exposure to view points and ways of life and thinking that may be vastly different than my own. This should not be done in places where people do not want foreigners coming in, but I think that the goal of volunteer tourism should be—when wanted by a community—a means for learning for both parties, as equally as possible. This can be achieved not through photo-ops and white savior complexes, but hopefully from a true desire to learn from rather than teach at the communities that volunteer tourists interact with.