Encounters With Discomfort: How Do Young Canadians Understand (Their) Privilege And (Others') Poverty In The Context Of An International Volunteer Experience?

Abstract

This qualitative case study explores how a group of Canadian youth negotiated their encounters with others’ poverty and their own privilege in the context of a short-term international volunteer experience in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through a thematic analysis of retrospective narrative interviews – informed by whiteness studies – this article describes participants’ experiences of discomfort arising from 1) their encounters with material poverty and 2) their ability to maintain their own privilege(s) overseas. Collectively, the data illuminate the various defensive strategies and explanatory frameworks that young people might employ when confronted with destabilizing information in unfamiliar international settings.

Incorporating Field Experience into International Agricultural Development Programs

“…Although international volunteerism started after World War I, more widely recognized organizations did not start until the 1960s and 1970s [19,21]. Governmental and non-governmental volunteer organizations targeted developing countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific [22][23][24][25]. Currently, some organizations working in international development (e.g., Winrock International, United Evangelical Mission, and Weltwärts), recruit volunteers from high-, middle-, and low-income countries to increase social understanding between volunteers and host country nationals, and to build host communities' economic development [19,21,[26][27][28][29].…”

Negotiating Blackness

“…These deeply depoliticized imaginaries obscure structural and historical understandings of the creation of poverty (Simpson, 2004). Research highlights that volunteer tourism actively remakes these homogenizing views of Africa and associated understandings of racialized difference, virtue and lack, helping white volunteers construct a sense of a 'selfless' moral subject position as they help black bodies (Darnell, 2007;Schwarz, 2015).…”

Directions for volunteer tourism and radical pedagogy

“…Literature on the post-tour is still sparse (Coghlan & Weiler, 2018;Couch & Georgeou, 2017;Ong, King, Lockstone-Binney, & Junek, 2018). However, a common narrative is beginning to form: many volunteers fall back into old rhythms, life trajectories and (non)politics upon returning home (Couch & Georgeou, 2017;Ong et al, 2018;Schwarz, 2015). The returned volunteer is (understandably) overwhelmed by newfound radical leanings and generally unsupported in developing these ideas.…”