Othering or authenticity?: Voluntourism and cultural exchange in Peru and Fiji

Abstract

As the tourism industry emerges from pandemic shutdowns and border closures, so too is “voluntourism”, the controversial combination of overseas volunteer work and more traditional tourist experiences. This has led to a resurgence of critiques, and to calls for the industry to take criticisms on board, examine past practice, reassess the role and impact of volunteering, and to take the opportunity to rethink the practice of volunteer tourism. One of the options proposed for reconfiguring voluntourism is to emphasise cultural exchange. This involves a focus on relationships, mutual understanding and respect for different cultures and knowledge systems, while moving away from discourses of ‘doing good’, helping and development.In this article we draw on primary, qualitative research from case studies in Peru and Fiji to examine voluntourism as cultural exchange. These very different examples of volunteering and cultural exchange highlight the potential of these encounters to increase mutual understanding and respect. However, they also show that emphasising cultural exchange in a context of significant inequality and difference, alongside the commodification of the volunteering experience, does not ensure cultures are perceived equally. Moreover, cultural exchange does not automatically encourage volunteer-tourists to face difficult questions regarding inequalities and differences across cultures. Therefore, we argue that voluntourism, when undertaken – as it often is – by volunteers from the global North working in the global South remains a highly inequitable, neo-colonial practice. Reframing volunteer tourism as cultural exchange may therefore further mask and even perpetuate injustice and inequality.