Not Your Normal Vacation: Voluntourism's Horrors and the Case for its Radical Change
Aditya Yelamali
Sept 2021
In our increasingly globalized world, the ability to obtain international experiences has been more widespread than ever. Volunteering and tourism have been prominent in our societies for a long time, and with continued growth of mobility and travel, these activities only continue to flourish (Cheer 3). However, while not a new concept, there has been a popular shift in recent years among secondary and university students to partake in a combination of the two activities, colloquially known as voluntourism. Historically, voluntourism “applies to those tourists who, for various reasons, volunteer in an organized way to undertake holidays that might involve aiding or alleviating the material poverty of some groups in society, the restoration of certain environments or research into aspects of society or environment” (Wearing 1). This typically means that those from wealthy and developed countries travel to less developed or impoverished countries and undertake projects that involve local and community development with altruistic desires (Cheer 3). This is reflected by the fact that “ninety per cent of voluntourism takes place in Latin America, Asia, and Africa” (Banki and Schonell 1477). Voluntourism is often associated with good intentions and positive outcomes, such as in urgent cases where professionals offer their time to contribute living-saving aid to those in crisis zones.
However, there is a different side to this portrayal. With its continuing popularity and increase in student participation, voluntourism as a form of service has been brought under extreme scrutiny by researchers looking to understand its impacts. In fact, voluntourism, now widespread and seen predominantly in our nation's institutions, operates upon ulterior motives that largely benefit the voluntourists and organizations that facilitate these experiences. The act of voluntourism can then be seen to take place at the expense of those they intend to help, resulting in the ‘othering,’ commodification, and eventual exploitation of marginalized communities that acts as a barrier to any self-serving future. Instead, voluntourism must take a radical shift towards sustainable alternatives and be portrayed with greater transparency in order to truly benefit communities in need.
At its core, voluntourism is thought to have ‘well-intentioned’ individuals partake in excursions that involve service activities during their stay. The ability to be a part of an opportunity that aids others while packaged as “an experience where the indigenous community forms part of the photogenic landscape” entices many students (McGloin and Georgeou 406). It’s no surprise that voluntourism is now prevalent among many college campuses, and it’s been estimated from the U.S. alone that “colleges and universities send over 6,000 students abroad every year for volunteer trips, while church groups sponsor around 1.6 million service trips annually” (Banki and Schonell 1475). With so many students involved in projects abroad, there are questions about sustainability, and consequently the ethical implications of this level of involvement. One example of this can be seen among undergraduate activity groups at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), where three identified clubs all appeared to conduct projects within Uganda in East Africa without any collaboration. Some organizations seem to be more sustainable, such as WashU’s Engineers Without Borders, in which their website describes detailed sustainable projects in Iganga, Uganda, that aim to increase access to clean water, sanitation, and infrastructure in a primary school (“Engineers Without Borders – WashU”). More importantly, engagement within the region is for a longer period of time, where different projects are continuous and ongoing, unlike the short interactions in voluntourism. Other organizations, however, raise serious concerns that can align with voluntourism’s issues. WashU’s Empower Through Health, though a relatively new chapter, states on its Facebook page that it “...aims to eliminate neglected tropical diseases in the Busoga subregion of Uganda through the implementation of our projects…” while one of the page’s posted informational slides state that “our chapter’s current project focuses on eliminating schistosomiasis and other helminth infections” (“Washington University Empower Through Health”). While the intentions seem positive, it can also be said that the handling of these diseases might be better left to public health officials such as the CDC and Ministry of Health in Uganda, who have already much experience dealing with many public health issues in Uganda rather than undergraduate students who likely lack the same level of experience (“CDC Global Health - Uganda”). GlobeMed at WashU, a student group that is part of a large network of chapters under the organization GlobeMed, does seem to be undertaking sustainable projects that are ongoing throughout the year. According to their website, the club works on long-term projects such as educating families to adopt healthier nutritional practices, educating the youth about topics such as HIV/AIDS and reproductive health, and maintaining a health center, all of which are funded by GlobeMed at WashU (“GlobeMed at WashU”). The chapter also works closely with Uganda Development and Health Associates (UDHA), an NGO dedicated to improving the lives of women and children across Eastern Uganda. While it is certainly true that the positive community interventions must be acknowledged, the sustainability of the projects, and whether or not this is the optimal way to make an impact, must be questioned. The website states that GlobeMed at WashU collectively raised over $94,000 for UDHA, $22,000 of which was raised during the 2019-2020 academic year. With such large amounts of money raised to fund these projects that include the salaries of the staff at the health center, it seems intuitive to suggest that the communities being impacted by these projects and health resources have also built a dangerous reliance on them, and consequently a reliance on these undergraduate students. What would happen if the students of GlobeMed at WashU were not able to raise the large amount of money needed to fund these projects? The gaps in sustainability and longevity of these projects are on full display, leaving one left to wonder how long this level of fundraising can be kept up—as well the potential for serious consequences from this reliance.
Taking a closer look, we see that it’s the nature of voluntourism itself that can further extend and deepen the barriers behind achieving a self-sufficient future for these low-resource populations. Just as we saw communities in Uganda relying on college students with likely many other priorities to supply some of their essential resources, voluntourism largely ends up reinforcing “the dominant paradigm that the poor of developing countries require the help of affluent westerners to induce development” (McGloin and Georgeou 407). The desire to ‘help the poor’ has become a selling point, and because of this, many researchers describe voluntourism interaction as “one that positions the poor as ‘the other’ in need of assistance” and in return “promising both authenticity and engagement with communities in developing countries” for the voluntourist (McGloin and Georgeou 407). Even more so, this often self-serving observation of voluntourism among affluent westerners and contemporary (white) America can even perpetuate the ‘white savior complex’ at an international level. Michele Dobrovolny, a voluntourist in an orphanage in Kenya, writes of her experiences and notes: “most of the voluntourists have paid a couple of thousand pounds to a British-based voluntourism agency for exactly this kind of authentic ‘African experience’[...] Voluntourism agencies,” she adds, “have sold us on the idea that there are people ‘out there’ who need our help, overshadowing the question of how modifying our own lifestyles might equally bring about positive change” (Dobrovolny 58). Drobrovolny’s observations bring into light many aspects of voluntourism that continue to perpetuate this normalization of differences in power and superiority, in which poor communities are seen as simply waiting to be helped as an addition towards the volutourist’s experience, dangerously ignoring many of the serious issues behind voluntourism and structural issues within communities. In this view, the preconceived power dynamic and discourse behind voluntourism actually “mimic and reinforce those responsible for global inequality and poverty in the first place” (McGloin and Georgeou 409). Students are becoming increasingly engaged globally—however, without proper intentions that look to benefit recipient communities in the long-term, what voluntourists might find as helping needy populations instead evolves into notions of inferiority and implicit assumptions that local populations lack any form of agency.
This then begs the question of intention itself: voluntourism is associated with heartfelt desires to ‘do good,’ but is this always the case? While there can certainly be intentions to solely make a positive impact, we in fact see that voluntourism is often not done for simply altruistic purposes, but rather for an array of ulterior motives intended to create a net benefit for voluntourists and voluntourist organizations (Anderson et al. 28). Often, voluntourists, including student voluntourists, partake in their international experiences because it’s a convenient way to gain something for themselves during a pleasant experience—and this self-serving concept makes sense. The voluntourist experience is constructed in such a way that students are “enticed by the near conflation of travel with an opportunity to ‘help’ the poor of developing nations” (McGloin and Georgeou 407). For example, the popular voluntourism organization givevolunteers.org depicts its volunteer experiences and expensive packages abroad with flashy video clips of joyful western students that are followed by descriptions that promise “eye-opening adventures” while also aiming to “activate global citizens,” even offering academic credit as an addition to the experience (“Volunteer Abroad Programs”). With pressure to make use of your time during school breaks, it makes sense that many students turn towards these experiences to civically differentiate themselves in their resume and CV in an increasingly competitive world of job markets and post-graduate program admissions (McGloin and Georgeou 407). In fact, it’s one of the main selling points of voluntourism: in case studies where voluntourism organizations pitched their programs to university students, researchers noted that “the civic engagement aspect of one’s CV is central to the success of voluntourism” (McGloin and Georgeou 414).
In addition, there are even more personal reasons why a student may choose to participate in voluntourism. One research study examining 60 short-term mission trips to 31 different countries discusses how one of “the biggest incentives for the volunteers... is the opportunity to showcase their trip journey on social media,” resulting in “inaccurate stereotypes on the recipient community” (Anderson et al. 29). Not only can this homogenize entire populations and continue the cycle of perceived helplessness, but also serves to shed light on the insidious nature of voluntourism: all of these motivations revolve around the central idea that minority bodies are used, in essence, as pawns to advance the voluntourist’s standing in society, where the expected return is social, experiential, and economic. With estimates that approximately $2 billion is spent annually in the voluntourism industry, one has no choice but to wonder who really benefits from this exchange. The experience of interacting with local cultures and communities has now been commodified; what was once a selfless act of serving developing areas has now become a commodity that can be purchased in hopes of achieving greater leverage in the employment market and in society. These motives, in addition to the increasing pressure to become a ‘global citizen,’ must be taken into consideration when evaluating voluntourists and service projects abroad, and this includes WashU’s undergraduate organizations.
In addition to WashU’s undergraduate organizations undertaking projects in Uganda, a different WashU student group offers “Global Brigades,” a type of service experience that is present in many institutions and closely resembles the convenient aspects of the voluntourist model we previously discussed. Their website states that “A Brigade is a short term trip (from 7-10 days over Winter or Spring Break) during which students utilize their skills to support rural communities” while offering multidisciplinary projects in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama that focus on issues surrounding everything from architecture to public health (“Global Brigades”). Here, the same questions of sustainability come up, and there are even discrepancies about what level of engagement and impact undergraduate student volunteers can truly make in the short time span of approximately a week when research instead suggests that “younger volunteers [voluntourists] are usually found in situations where high level skills are not required” (Cheer 4).
These discrepancies can instead actually end up harming low-resource communities, and there’s the severe risk that unskilled volunteers filling these positions are taking away employment opportunities from skilled locals (Cheer 4). While of course, there is the argument that regardless of what ulterior motives an individual might have upon deciding to become a voluntourist, any sort of contribution still helps, right? It turns out that this hegemonic mindset, one which places low resource communities with expectations to be grateful for any sort of voluntourist ‘help,’ is what creates ignorance towards the real, serious problems voluntourism perpetuates. The previous discussion of over-reliance on western countries is one place to start. One example of this can be found by looking at TOMS, a shoe company that first differentiated itself from its competitors through promises to donate a pair of shoes to a child in developing countries like Haiti for every pair of shoes sold in the U.S., leaving more companies quickly adopting this model after its initial success. While at first glance this seemed like a generous act of kindness, it eventually became a heavy burden. The impacts of TOMS shoe donations were later observed, and there’s glaring evidence that “recipients of TOMS shoes really want money instead: the many anecdotal reports of TOMS turning up in markets in the countries they’re donated” (Taub). Essentially, the overwhelming donation of shoes weren’t being used by recipients in these communities; they were being turned into an extremely inefficient and harmful way to earn money, something these individuals needed much more because locals knew their problems best. Likewise, other case studies detailed astonishing accounts of more than $300 million worth of used clothing from the United States as well as other wealthy countries being imported annually into East African countries, which “devastated local clothing industries and led the region to rely far too heavily on the West” (Goldberg). In essence, the false and normalized assumption that foreign intervention always leads to positive outcomes instead serves to overshadow all visions of a sustainable future for these communities.
But perhaps one of the greatest dangers of the voluntourism industry is its economic incentives that result in the exploitation and separation of children from their families in Indigenous populations. Cambodia, one of the world’s largest voluntourism destinations containing an estimated 17 Indigenous groups, also has a high number of orphanages which have become popular voluntourism destinations (McGloin and Georgeou 412). Further insight into these orphanages revealed “shocking detail about the extent of corruption by many voluntourism organisations and orphanage administrators in Cambodia,” where in one case a voluntourist had paid up to $3000 per month towards voluntourism organizations just to find out that “only $9 a week per volunteer was paid to the orphanage she attended” (McGloin and Georgeou 412). TED speaker Tara Winkler, co-founder of the Cambodian Children’s Trust, recounted her previous experiences as a volunteer in an orphanage in Cambodia, where she would soon come to find out that her volunteer experience was actually contributing to the problem. Upon learning to communicate with the orphans, it turned out that “the vast majority of children living in these orphanages are not orphans” and had actually been separated from their poor and vulnerable families by voluntourism organizations in order to keep the orphanages as primary destinations for voluntourists to donate money (Winkler). This horrifying problem has only continued to increase, both in Cambodia and in other countries, as “the numbers of orphanages in Cambodia has risen by more than 75 percent” since 2005 (Winkler). The fallacies and dangers of the voluntourist experience are clear to view. The ‘life-changing experience’ that is promised might change a voluntourist’s worldly perspective; however, there is the false assumption that the communities they’ve interacted with have also had their lives changed.
The constant push for a more ‘authentic’ experience among voluntourists has led service organizations to inaccurately portray what the actual living situation and conditions for a community might be, and this concept of authenticity is important to consider when deconstructing voluntourism. In many incidences, the allure of an ‘authentic’ experience of cultural life means that voluntourism experiences are “always arranged to produce the impression that you are entering a back region, even though this is often not the case” (Speijer 22). This “back region,” a space dedicated for the ‘authentic’ activities of the host community, becomes a prized commodity that is advertised as “untouched by modernity and life prior to penetration of western influences” (Speijer 22). Because of this modification and construction of authenticity that is aimed to please and meet modern society’s standards, voluntourists accept a fabricated perspective of the places they visit. The consequences of this are fatal. As we previously saw in the issues of orphanages, the selling point of ‘authenticity’ and socially constructed view of an authentic experience have an economic incentive to be upheld. Now, the effect is in fact quite the opposite; contrary to its goals, many agencies work instead to purposefully provide a poor view of the community in order to accommodate voluntourism’s agendas, leaving vulnerable Indigenous communities to become exploited as puppets in a theater performance.
The complexity of this topic makes defining its ethical borders difficult. While at first glance voluntourism seems to be harmless, this is far from the truth. The thriving industry can reinforce harmful narratives that paint poor countries as reliant on wealthier countries while at the same time being carried out at the expense of the communities they intend to help. So how can we make voluntourism—including its student involvement—more sustainable? We’ve seen how there can be an array of ulterior motives, rather than altruistic, that drive individuals to participate in voluntourism. However, its flashy portrayal and adventurous presentation do not reflect that. We can start by addressing what voluntourism should be presented as: a learning experience for the voluntourist. By realizing that the ‘adventurous’ or lucrative experience might come at the price of many others’ daily lives, we can start to understand the need for more sustainable alternatives and projects that will be upheld in the long-term. By keeping this critical view in mind while not turning a blind eye towards potential issues, we can start to make crucial steps towards a more hopeful future—one in which all communities are equipped with the tools to build a better future for themselves, by themselves.
Works Cited
Anderson, S. Eric, et al. “Voluntourism: The Economic Benefit and Societal Costs of Short-Term Mission Trips.” International Journal of Health & Economic Development, 3:2. 2017. 28–37.
Banki, Susan and Richard Schonell. “Voluntourism and the Contract Corrective.” Third World Quarterly, 39:8. 2017. 1475–1490.
“CDC Global Health - Uganda.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 10 June 2019.
Cheer, Joseph M. “The Characteristics and Impacts of Voluntourism.” Geodate, 32:2. 2019. 3–7.
Dobrovolny, Michelle. “Confessions of a Voluntourist.” New Internationalist, July/Aug. 2012. 58–60.
Engineers Without Borders – WashU. ewb.wustl.edu.
“Global Brigades (GB).” Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement. gephardtinstitute.wustl.edu/items/global-brigades-gb.
GlobeMed at WashU. globemedwu.org.
Goldberg, Eleanor. “These African Countries Don't Want Your Used Clothing Anymore.” HuffPost. 19 Sep. 2016.
McGloin, Colleen, and Nichole Georgeou. “‘Looks Good on Your CV’: The Sociology of Voluntourism Recruitment in Higher Education.” Journal of Sociology, 52:2. 2016. 403–417.
Speijer, Tessa. Voluntourism, othering, and commodification; a case study in St Lucia and surrounding communities, South Africa. MSc Thesis, Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University. 2018.
Taub, Amanda. “Buying TOMS Shoes Is a Terrible Way to Help Poor People.” Vox. 23 July 2015.
“Volunteer Abroad Programs in Asia, Africa & Central America with GIVE!” GIVE. 22 Dec. 2020.
“Washington University Empower Through Health.” Facebook. 8 Aug. 2020.
Wearing, Stephen. Volunteer Tourism: Experiences That Make a Difference. CABI. 2001.
Winkler, Tara. “Why We Need to End the Era of Orphanages.” TED. May 2016.
With the Best Intentions … A Study of Attitudes Towards Residential Care in Cambodia. Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation and UNICEF. 2011.
Aditya Yelamali is from Seattle, Washington and studies in the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.