Impactfull: What’s the Problem with Voluntourism?

“I’m so thankful for the opportunity to give these two Haitian families a better future,” the caption reads.

It’s summertime, and your social media feed is scattered with photos of friends constructing buildings, teaching schoolchildren, and providing rudimentary medical aid. Despite their stated tasks, you can’t help but notice that every single one of their photos features them surrounded by a crowd of smiling African children. Their “despite not having anything, they taught me everything” captions signal recognition of their privilege but are devoid of tangible next steps to help those they’ve met.

Many altruistic volunteers use these standardized short-term commitments to “make a difference”; however, their focus on their own contributions blind them to how their programs impact local operations. The self-centricity is a key indicator of white saviorism (or white savior complex), which is the notion of a better-off volunteer (who isn’t necessarily white) helping someone who is less fortunate in a self-serving manner. 

White Saviorism is Rooted in Colonialism

The relationship between Western countries and underdeveloped countries stems from imperialism and colonialism in the 15th century. European forays destroyed the local economies of the conquered lands, and subjugators sought to cement control by forcing the conquered nations to rely on them for economic assistance. To justify their dominance, Westerners subscribed to unilineal evolution, which is the ideology that all societies develop along the same progression and that they are the furthest along the development timeline. The belief that it is the Europeans’ duty to help other populations reach the same level of development now known as the White Man’s Burden. The Euro-centric mindset produced control strategies that induced egregious losses of local cultural traditions and economic stability. 

Colonial attitudes have since morphed into the white savior industrial complex or white saviorism. Citizens of wealthier nations today still set off into other countries to help the less fortunate based on their own values and perceptions of modernization. And while they claim that their goal is to improve the lives of local people, their social media posts when they get home are about the “big emotional experience that validates [their] privilege.”

Neocolonialism is Alive and Well Via Voluntourism and Ignorant International Development.

With the world’s rapid movement towards globalization, Western citizens are eager to interact with new cultures and increase their image of worldliness. Their emphasis on valuing all cultures equally makes it easy to disregard colonialism as a scheme of the past. But while tourism centers around getting an “authentic” experience of the local area, the volunteer’s preconceived impression of the location shapes their perception of authenticity. Constant bombardment from national politics and travel industry marketing skew people’s impressions of other cultures. This ignorance blinds tourists to the continued exploitation of impoverished peoples through voluntourism and international development.

What is voluntourism? This form of volunteering that helps others in a self-serving way, is an increasingly popular Western break activity. The term “voluntourism” was created by mixing “volunteering” and “tourism.”

Week-long voluntourism programs are touted as trips to learn about a foreign culture while making a difference to an impoverished community. 

Most international volunteers believe that they should help the less fortunate, which is an inherently benevolent motive. However, their efforts are often misguided by a lack of understanding of foreign communities’ issues. Outsiders can never fully understand the complicated web of factors tying an issue into the cultural fabric of an area. The oversimplification of problems is known as reductive seduction and leads to overconfidence in volunteers’ ability to make a positive impact. 

Foreign solutions also fall prey to under-differentiation; volunteer teams think that because two cultures have similar overarching details, the same answer that worked in one place would translate well to another location with minimal adjustments. Most volunteers only stay for a short time, so they never witness the positive or negative long-term impact and simply assume that their project was successful.

Problems Span Beyond Personal Into the Structural.

Foreigners usually rely on volunteering organizations to contact locals for participation opportunities. To reduce communication barriers, these programs usually correspond with English-speaking locals, who are likely more wealthy and educated and not representative of the community. The programs also must provide experiences and results to continue receiving donations and support, forcing them to prioritize their financial agenda. Conflicting goals from these stakeholders decrease the focus on the native population’s needs.

External expectations and social constructs push volunteers further away from providing helpful services. Social media followers expect to see complete, uplifting stories on their social media feed. College applications and company recruiters filter their candidates by who can prove that they contribute to a project. Volunteers catering to these expectations are more willing to trade real long-term impact for flashy short-term projects. In their attempts to stand out, they are also more likely to travel abroad instead of volunteering in their own communities which they better understand. This leveraging of others’ suffering for personal gain is reminiscent of the exploitative practices of neocolonialism.

Development Solidifies Power Imbalance.

Neocolonialism is incredibly harmful economically and politically. Volunteers usually participate in unskilled labor, which disrupts the local labor economy. Meanwhile voluntourism locations that allow donations lead to an over-reliance on subsidies. Without reciprocation, the one-sided transaction of Western outsiders helping impoverished countries create self-image issues amongst locals and reinforces the savior complex in volunteers’ minds. 

In the global stage, politicians from wealthier countries can dismiss the statements of their aid-receiving counterparts and threaten aid withholdment to force alliances to the developing nations’ detriment. These actions cement the uneven power dynamic into international laws and exploitative relationships between countries.

Even the way that we describe nations as “developing” is a product of white savior complex. A country that does not fit the Western standard of modernization is marked as a “developing nation” even though they may have advanced technologies of their own design. One common example is Americans assuming that Asia’s squatting toilets is a sign of underdevelopment because they are accustomed to sitting toilets. In reality, many studies have shown that squatting is actually more beneficial for bowel movements. The current terminology refers to these countries as “peripheral nations.” While this is still very Western-centric, it acknowledges the exploitative relationship between them and Western “core” countries while mitigating the downplaying of their achievements. 

White saviorism is an ever-evolving concept.

In previous decades, white saviorism was focused on solving all problems. Volunteers emphasized the impact they made on the local community and spoke in absolutes despite never seeing the long-term implications. This phenomenon is still widespread in volunteers looking for resume and college application boosters and perpetuates the harmful assumption that all initiatives are successful and require no feedback for modifications.

As the US becomes more aware of the indicators, white saviorism has taken on a disguised role by hiding under the veil of self-awareness. Volunteers are increasingly introspective about their experience to avoid making sweeping statements about their impact. 

However, the focus on the volunteer takeaways shifts attention away from the local community and their needs. Instead of focusing on empowering natives, many Westerners view their trips as spiritual retreats where the point is to educate themselves on their privilege. Much like the older version of white saviorism, this woke version also does not require continued communication with locals.

How do we fight neocolonialism in international development?

The main focus of defeating neocolonialism is to fuel durable collaboration between volunteers and natives, with the locals taking the lead on development projects. No White Saviors is an organization focused on empowering communities through legislation and creating spaces to challenge voluntourism. In addition to sweeping legislative changes, neocolonialism needs to be addressed in personal biases and organizational policy.