The spectacle of saving: conservation voluntourism and the new neoliberal economy on Utila, Honduras

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic research on Utila, Honduras, this paper suggests that conservation volunteerism suffers from "fictitious conservation", surrounded by "spectacle". The "spectacle of saving" associated with the promotion of conservation voluntourism advances the creation of new neoliberal citizens while further concealing the micropolitics of commodified nature. Volunteer conservation tourism creates value in the trade of experiences in or with "nature" while detracting from the labour and value produced through grounded local interactions with natural resources. While voluntourists are busy "saving" endangered species, they are also collecting the entrepreneurial skills and competencies to be successful as the new neoliberal economy. Thus, as a site of fictitious conservation under neoliberalism, conservation voluntourism advances the creation of new neoliberal citizens while justifying its own existence by furthering ecological devastation, obscuring uneven development processes and devaluing local labour and relationships to natural resources. The paper closes with a proposal to reconfigure volunteer arrangements to move nature-based voluntourism towards a rights-based conservation approach through three strategies:(1) collaborative programme design by embracing "friction", (2) expanded understanding of local impacts, and (3) redesigning volunteer activities to embed a social justice pedagogy using the steps of transformative learning.

Research in Sustainable Tourism: A Longitudinal Study of Articles between 2008 and 2017

“…Volunteer tourism is an increasingly popular travel mode proven to enhance cross-cultural understanding [62][63][64] and further promote the economy of the host region [65]. Hence, volunteer tourism becomes the theme of cluster 5 in sustainable tourism studies.…”

Exotic Place, White Space: Racialized Volunteer Spaces in Honduras

“…Interviewee remarks, as do the works of many scholars (e.g., Kelly and Case 2007;Lasker 2016;McBride, Lough, and Sherrard 2012;Sin 2009;Tiessen 2012Tiessen , 2007Tiessen and Huish 2014;Vacanti Brondo 2015), show that international volunteers are not solely motivated by a desire to help the Rest (Easterly 2006). Although I do not deny the volunteers were likely interested in helping, they were also motivated by their ability to extract value from an exoticized context (Conran 2006;Kontogeorgopoulos 2016).…”

“…In a highly individualistic American context, volunteering benefits individuals by stimulating feelings of societal contribution, boosting self-esteem, and relieving feelings of guilt (Clary, Snyder, and Ridge 1992;Okun 1994). In addition, international volunteer experiences can function as a kind of cultural capital; international volunteers are presented with an opportunity to go on service trips in which they are able to experience cultural novelty and seek visual stimulus, as well as pad their r esum es and become more well-rounded "global citizens" (Kelly and Case 2007;Lasker 2016;McBride, Lough, and Sherrard 2012;Sin 2009;Tiessen and Huish 2014;Vacanti Brondo 2015). In addition to questions of self-interest and mutual benefit, some research suggests cross-cultural volunteer opportunities are likely to increase the divide between the hosts and visitors, rather than encourage dialogue or cultural appreciation (Sin 2009;Raymond and Hall 2008;Simpson 2004;Vrasti 2013).…”

“…In fact, much of the literature published on the topic provides a rather positive assessment of voluntourism programs. Although this notion has been complicated in recent years (Raymond and Hall 2008;Vacanti Brondo 2015), voluntourism is generally thought of as a mutually beneficial and sustainable tourist practice. Supposedly altruistic by nature, volunteer tourism offers a rewarding experience for voluntourists as they participate in community development projects, scientific research, environmental restoration, and so forth (McIntosh and Zahra 2007).…”

Sustainable Community Development or Voluntourism: Sustainable Housing in Rural Maharashtra

“…These doubts, I have subsequently discovered, are shared by others, including with regard to NGO behavior (Ebrahim 2001;Ghosh 2009). I wondered as a result whether I was seeing another example of 'fictitious' sustainability and spectacle (Brondo 2015) through voluntourism and an opportunity arose to examine this. Thus, the primary research question for this case study was as follows:…”