ABSTRACT

This paper examines the understanding of poverty emerging in voluntourists’ accounts of their first-hand experiences of poverty alleviation. Based on the ethnography of an orphanage in Nepal, we show that despite voluntourists’ good intentions and even (self-)criticism of the volunteer tourism approach to poverty relief, their accounts tend to consolidate rather regressive ideas about poverty. We draw on postcolonial and post-development theory to illuminate specific ways in which the old Orientalist tropes and discourses of othering are perpetuated in this novel neoliberal form of travelling. We contribute to the critical work on voluntourism and market-based approaches to societal and environmental problems by focusing on poverty as an object of consumption. Such a conception emerges from how the voluntourists’ stories were shaped by and refracted through the structure of voluntourism and the logics of social media. Such refraction leads to systematic depoliticisation of global inequality and responses to poverty.

摘要

本文考察了志愿者在描述他们的第一手扶贫经历时对贫困的理解。基于尼泊尔一家孤儿院的民族志，我们表明，尽管志愿旅游者有良好的意愿，甚至（自我）批评志愿旅游救济贫困的方法，但他们的叙述往往巩固了关于贫困的相当倒退的观念。我们利用后殖民和后发展理论来阐明古老的东方主义比喻和他者话语在这种新颖的新自由主义旅行形式中得以延续的具体方式。通过将贫困作为消费对象，我们为志愿旅游和以市场为基础的社会和环境问题解决方案的重要工作做出了贡献。这样的概念源于志愿旅游者的故事是如何被志愿旅游的结构和社交媒体的逻辑所塑造和折射的。这种折射导致全球不平等和对贫困的反应系统地去政治化。