This article studies photographic practices in 'voluntourism' alongside the rise of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. The advent and widespread use of social media platforms today complicates the ethics of photographic practices, as the ease of sharing photographs accentuates and stirs up the unequal relations between the photographer and the photographed. From a conceptual standpoint, the moral and altruistic underpinnings of volunteer work supposedly differentiate voluntourists from their counterparts in mainstream tourism, who are often assumed to be engaged in commoditized and leisure-based activities. However, existing research suggests that voluntourists do participate in conventionally touristic practices, as the pervasiveness of photography illustrates. Using interviews with 16 voluntourists, this article examines the negotiations behind photo-taking and photo-posting in voluntourism. We also consider the case of Barbie Savior, a satirical Instagram account featuring 'the doll that saved Africa'. The emergence of such online media articles that critique and make fun of voluntourists' depiction of their Third World experience therefore becomes a self-governing mechanism for how one should behave in encountering the Third World, even as voluntourism itself continues to be seen as a viable way of caring for the Third World.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.