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Voluntourism: Exploring Ethical Challenges and Critical Tensions within the Pay-to-Volunteer Industry Senior Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Undergraduate Program in Anthropology Janet McIntosh, Advisor In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts by Jessye Kass May 2013 Copyright by Jessye Kass Committee members: Janet McIntosh – Anthropology Elizabeth Ferry – Anthropology Marion Smiley - Philosophy Voluntourism: Exploring Ethical Challenges and Critical Tensions within the Pay-to-Volunteer Industry Jessye Kass ABSTRACT This work aims to explore the ethical concerns and tensions embedded within the voluntourism industry through a holistic combination of ethnographic data and anthropological and ethical theory. Kass 2 Declaration This senior honors thesis is submitted for review by the Anthropology Department of Brandeis University for consideration of departmental honors to Jessye Kass in May of 2013. With regard to the above, I declare that this is an original piece of work and that all non-cited writing is my own. Acknowledgements I want to take a moment to thank all of those responsible for making this body of work possible. There were numerous people who gave their time, energy and intellect toward assisting me in completing this thesis. First and foremost, I would like to thank my primary advisor, Professor Janet McIntosh, for her continuous, incredible support and guidance. Thank you for constantly motivating me, reminding me to breathe, numerous edits and insightful ideas, many meetings, hundreds of emails, and most of all for believing in me and this project. To Professor Elizabeth Ferry, thank you for being a reader, despite your numerous commitments, for your interest in my work, and for quick responses with numerous references that allowed me to further my arguments and back up my data. To Professor Marion Smiley, thank you for agreeing to be my third reader outside of the department, especially as you are not even on campus this semester. Thank you for our epically long conversation in Cambridge; it was instrumental to the growth of this thesis. Your insight, thoughtfulness, resources and support of my ideas were incredibly appreciated. There is no way I would have been able to complete this work without the three of you, I am incredibly grateful: thank you! Lastly, I would like to acknowledge my fellow senior theses writers, my friends and family who all provided a shoulder to cry on, an ear to bounce ideas off of (even if you had no idea what I was talking about) and a support system that is irreplaceable. Thank you all for your incredible support in this incredible endeavor. Kass 3 Table of Contents Declaration & Acknowledgments.................................................................................................3 Introduction: Why Voluntourism?..............................................................................................5 Chapter 1 – Tourism, Development and Voluntourism: A Historical Framework History of Tourism............................................................................................................13 Voluntourism: The Beginning.........................................................................................22 Competing Discourses on the Current Concerns of Voluntourism...............................29 Chapter 2 – The Consumer: Motives, Entitlements and Attitudes of the Volunteer More Harm or More Good?: How to Judge..................................................................40 Narratives and Perceptions of Self-Interested Motives.................................................47 Assumptions, Ethics of Need and the Possibility of Semi-Altruism.............................52 When the Consumer Can Cause Harm: Attitudes and Notions of Entitlement..........56 Constructed for Mutual Benefit, but Potentially more Harmful than not..................62 Chapter 3 – The Consumed: The Effect of Power Dynamics, Privilege and Paternalism on Host Communities Power Structures: Colonial History and Theoretical Framing...................................63 Power and Money: An Uncomfortable Inequality.......................................................67 Developments of Paternalism.......................................................................................74 Are Volunteers Reproducing Neo-Colonialism in Ghana?........................................81 Chapter 4 – Racial Tensions in Voluntourism: ‘The White Woman Complex’ & ‘Othering’ Framing Race.................................................................................................................83 The ‘White Woman Complex’.......................................................................................86 Money, Money, Money..................................................................................................90 Societal Structures & Gender Ideology........................................................................91 The Media We Live In..................................................................................................97 Further Racial Tensions Inspired by Media.............................................................103 Further Conclusions: Why Volunteer at All?......................................................................114 Endnotes..................................................................................................................................118 Introduction: Why Voluntourism? Kass 4 “You in American, don’t understand! Why do you even care?” Christabell raises her hands in frustration and stomps out of the cramped classroom we have been working in together. Throwing her painfully raw drawing into the trashcan on her way out, her hands balled into fists, Christabell appears agitated. I place my head in my hands and wonder: what is it that I am trying to do here? This particular encounter with Christabell occurred after I had been working with her for several weeks, via a non-governmental organization in Ghana that I had co-founded in 2010. This foundation, Attukwei Art Foundation (AAF), is geared toward using creative arts as a therapeutic method of allowing children to tell their story. AAF works primarily in Accra, the capitol of Ghana; since 2010 the organization has worked with over 1,000 children. Over the past four years, I have lived in Ghana cumulatively for over a year through a series of five individual trips. Even though I continued to visit and live in Ghana, my feelings and conclusions toward my work abroad have often been mixed. Despite moments in which I never doubted aspects of my time in Ghana, there were many more instances in which I questioned my role rigorously and was critical of what complexities the presence I had created for myself held. In part, my questioning is informed by my academic concentration in anthropology. Christabell’s words stung me, but pushing past the sting, I know that in part she is right. I may never understand. I may always be an outsider, stuck in what I have come to understand as an ‘etic’ view. Often anthropologists, or those studying the discipline, strive to hold an insiders, also known as ‘emic,’ perspective on the cultures they are observing, rather than an outsiders ‘etic’ understanding. Emic and etic were terms coined by linguistic anthropologist Kenneth Pike, who essentially suggested that there are two approaches to study of a society’s cultural system: either emic, as an insider, or etic, as an outsider.1 The ideal tends to be an emic comprehension Kass 5 for it allows for a more in depth understanding of the culture or community in question. After Christabell leaves the room I find myself staring at the ground and thinking that despite my attempts to understand, I will never have a truly emic perspective on Ghana nor Christabell’s life. Regardless of my intent to provide a safe space where students I worked with could unpack their stories in cathartic ways that allowed them to heal, that was not always the case. My place as a white American girl, being able to afford to come to Ghana for months at a time before returning to the luxury of my American lifestyle created an awkward dichotomy in the relationships between me and those of the Ghanaians I have encountered. This uncomfortable balance between having a heart full of desire to ‘help’ and simultaneously needing to be aware of challenges and tensions within volunteering is a cause for a need to look further into this realm of volunteer service abroad. Specifically, evident in this conflicting balance it may be useful to look toward harm and benefit on behalf of the receiver of my own role as a ‘volunteer’ within a foreign country. Though anthropological research and theory does not aim to determine what is inherently wrong or right, among those practicing the discipline there is a general concern for the impact on communities. The anthropologist usually strives to create the least possible change on communities, lest they superimpose their own (usually) western values. As anthropology Professor John Van Willigen offers, “the primary issue in the ethical debate is the potential harm which the activities of the anthropologist may have on a community or a specific person.”2 Willigen explains that this framework is relevant especially in the case of applied anthropology where anthropologists are using their understandings to benefit host communities. Cautious of cultural imperialism, and other concerns regarding host communities

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