The ‘volunteer tourist gaze’: commercial volunteer tourists’ interactions with, and perceptions of, the host community in Cusco, Peru

Abstract

This paper presents the commodified volunteer tourist gaze through the use of a case study which contextualises commercial volunteer tourism. Interviews undertaken with volunteer tourists in Cusco, Peru, and on-the-ground participant observation, provide insights into what we term a 'volunteer tourist gaze' underpinned by neo-colonial tendencies. The findings demonstrate that volunteer tourists are not passive consumers of a destination, but actively engaged in a multi-sensory, embodied experience. This is evidenced in the way they describe their interactions with local people, and their views and perceptions of poverty in Cusco. However, the findings suggest that the volunteerhost interactions and experiences do little to foster cross-cultural understanding, particularly given the limitations to these interactions imposed by a significant language barrier. Instead, the commodified volunteer tourist gaze perpetuates neo-colonial discourses by emphasising the differences between volunteer tourists from the developed world (the haves) and host communities in the Global South (the have nots).

Engaging volunteer tourism in post-disaster recovery in Nepal

“…Yet there are many criticisms of volunteer tourism's role in development, particularly in the Global South. Godfrey, Wearing, and Schulenkorf (2015) argue that volunteer tourism has been packaged by an industry for the neo-liberal consumption by white, well-educated, young people. In this vein volunteer tourism is viewed as postcolonial Western domination in development processes (Devereux, 2008;Eddins, 2013;Palacios, 2010;Vrasti, 2013).…”

“Gazing” and “performing”: Travel photography and online self-presentation

“…Through this research, I hoped to carve a path for investigation into international volunteers’ picturing and posting practices, a topic which is increasingly salient for visual and non-visual scholars alike. For example, while Godfrey et al (2020) centered their analysis around the commercial dimensions of volunteer tourism in Peru, the lead author observed that some volunteers were keen to photograph local children and that other volunteers judged them negatively for such conduct, with one participant remarking: “it makes me kind of ‘eargh’, it’s almost kind of poverty tourism. .…”

Progress in volunteer tourism research: From niche tourism curiosity to experience-based improvements

“…Considered initially as a niche type of tourism (Stainton, 2016), its popularity has since grown (Kainthola et al, 2021), and it is now classified as a phenomenon under "mass niche" (Thompson & Taheri, 2020). For example, volunteer tourism is considered one of the main subtypes of "research related tourism" (Shah et al, 2022) or scientific tourism (Godfrey et al, 2015) whenever it "involves elements of research" or "knowledge acquisition through learning and practicing new tasks". It means that scientists may engage in a volunteer organisation's project as its leaders (Shah et al 2022).…”