Teasing the boundaries of ‘volunteer tourism’: local NGOs looking for global workforce

Frilund, Rebecca

doi:10.1080/13683500.2015.1080668

Cited by 22 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Many scholars (e.g. Barkin & Bouchez, 2002;Frilund, 2018;Kennedy & Dornan, 2009;Scheyvens, 2012) have claimed that NGOs perform a positive role within tourism development, especially in encouraging local community to participate in and drive the project themselves.…”

Section: The Spatial Dimensions Of Trust In Tourismmentioning

confidence: 99%

A geographical approach to trust in tourism

Sun

Ying

Jong

2019

Tourism Geographies

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Within tourism research, trust has largely been conceptualised from psychological perspectives, allowing insights into the mechanisms through which resident/stakeholder relations generate trust. Whilst this work is valuable in understanding dynamics of trust relations, such focus has meant less attention has been given to the ways space influences trust in tourism contexts. Thus a geographical approach is put forth to understanding trust in tourism. Through observation and semi-structured interviews concerned with the implementation of a community tourism project in southwest China, insights are provided illustrating how trust is inscribed in place. It is shown that in the Chinese context, cultural place based specifities relating to pre-existing governance structures, social hierarchies, and the intersection of power, knowledge and trust influence the (in)abilities of NGOs to develop trust with specific residents. More meaningful dialogue between tourism research and geographical conceptualisations of trust is called foras a way to attend to spatial and scalar differences in understandings of trust within tourism contexts.

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Section: The Spatial Dimensions Of Trust In Tourismmentioning

confidence: 99%

A geographical approach to trust in tourism

Sun

Ying

Jong

2019

Tourism Geographies

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“…This is not to deny research on southern perspectives on international volunteering and volunteers (e.g. Frilund, ; Sin, ), but to highlight that such work can also produce a focus on perceptions of the northern volunteer by actors and hosts in the South.…”

Section: A Partial Geography Of International Volunteeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The above discussion indicates that which volunteers are hosted and where they are located – physically and discursively – is more complex than neoliberal logics or the programming priorities of northern agencies. It also reflects contestation and negotiation from global South civil society actors as they negotiate both “d” and “D” development (see also Frilund, ). Understanding these processes requires us to go beyond a geography of volunteering based on an analysis of “the criteria used by volunteer‐tourism NGOs for choosing countries and locations for their work” (Keese, , p. 275) and beyond calls for a relational geography that focuses on connections between apparently discrete places.…”

Section: Hidden Geometries Of Volunteering and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is not to deny research on southern perspectives on international volunteering and volunteers (e.g. Frilund, 2015;Sin, 2010), but to highlight that such work can also produce a focus on perceptions of the northern volunteer by actors and hosts in the South. More significant challenges to established geographies of volunteering and development are being generated by recent changes in the landscape of development.…”

Section: Changing Understandings Of International Volunteeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unsettling geographies of volunteering and development

Laurie

Smith

2017

Trans Inst British Geog

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This article critically examines the geography of volunteering in relation to international development. We identify the investments involved in sustaining the North-South imaginaries that have come to dominate scholarship in this field and explore new ways of unsettling this geography. We draw together empirical material from five different research projects, conducted with distinct thematic and geographical foci over a six-year timeframe. We do so in order to show how existing geographies of volunteering and development have produced fixed understandings of agency and experiences in diverse contexts, meanwhile side-lining the temporalities associated with such fixings. We highlight how the continued privileging of northern mobilities, temporalities and biographies has segregated particular settings and types of volunteering and obscured other, often shared and sometimes co-produced development processes, relationships and spaces. In developing a new approach, we first emphasise the importance of looking at the "hidden geometries" that shape the individual, institutional and organisational articulations that are central to the relationship between volunteering and development. Second, we introduce the idea of a flattened topography to level the emphasis on difference in the geographies associated with this relationship. We aim to make visible new volunteers and development actors as well as reveal different rhythms and routines of volunteering, and different identities, biographies and forms of career and life-making connected with volunteering and development. K E Y W O R D Sbiographies, flattened topographies, international development, relational space, temporalities, volunteering | INTRODUCTIONIn his article "The geography of volunteer tourism: place matters", James Keese (2011) argues that destination is primary in the recruitment of international volunteers by non-government organisations (NGOs). Here we question the dominance of international volunteers in development volunteering scholarship and explore geography as more than place and destination. We interrogate the geographical imaginary that frames volunteering research and examine the extent to which current geographies of volunteering are able to contain the tensions and contradictions associated with contemporary international development, and their transcendence of established North-South spatial imaginaries. We argue that the "global work" (Jones, 2008) of wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tran | 95

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“…In few sectors is this potential greater than in volunteer tourism communities, where the purpose of travel is the alleviation of poverty (Wearing, 2001). As such, scholars are concerned with the outcomes of volunteer tourism and whether positive outcomes can be extended by changing the relationship dynamics between volunteers, hosts and beneficiaries (Frilund, 2018;Kontogeorgopoulos, 2017;Lee & Zhang, 2020;Tomazos & Butler, 2012). However, literature has rarely placed the analytical focus on the structure of the host community space and how it moderates this exchange.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volunteer tourism fields: spaces of altruism and unsustainability

Thompson

2021

Current Issues in Tourism

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Drawing upon research from six volunteer projects in Cambodia, this paper explores the volunteer host community as a 'space' that has its own rules and normalized ways of behaving that influences the assistance prospective beneficiaries receive. Underpinned by Bourdieu's theory of field's, qualitative interviews and participant observation is conducted with both volunteers and hosts. This paper concludes that volunteer project rules are not homogeneous and that normalized ways of behaving can lead to unregulated and unsustainable practice but also integrated and productive outcomes. This suggests a more regulative and structured approach to volunteer tourism led by media and volunteers themselves may enhance the sustainable foundation of the sector.

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Teasing the boundaries of ‘volunteer tourism’: local NGOs looking for global workforce

Cited by 22 publications

References 59 publications

A geographical approach to trust in tourism

A geographical approach to trust in tourism

Unsettling geographies of volunteering and development

Volunteer tourism fields: spaces of altruism and unsustainability

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