Cultural Exchange during English-Language Voluntourism (EVT) in Lima, Peru: A Postcolonial Analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent years, English-language voluntourism (EVT) has grown in popularity, with many conceptualizing it as a form of cultural exchange between English speaking volunteers and members of a non-English speaking host community. This article explores relationships between and within volunteers and host groups of an EVT program in Lima, Peru. Using a postcolonial analytical framework, we explore how bringing together voluntourists and members of host communities from different socioeconomic backgrounds can reinforce inequality and difference between groups, even when framed as a “cultural exchange.” Presenting the idea of “worlds within worlds,” we argue that EVT, and the diffusion of English as a foreign “world” language, underscore an unequal and postcolonial dynamic between actors and the “worlds” from which they originate, both internationally and intra-nationally. In this way, EVT as cultural exchange creates a microcosm for maintaining wider systemic structures and inequalities.