Hopeful possibilities in spaces of ‘the-not-yet-become’: relational encounters in volunteer tourism

ABSTRACT

Volunteer tourism has rapidly emerged as a pervasive form of contemporary global tourism. This paper examines the importance of incorporating non-representational theories into analyses of volunteer tourism. Discussions of volunteer tourism are often framed within fixed notions of culture, identity and power relations. In this paper I argue that attention to embodiment, affect and emotion can provide more nuanced insights into the ambiguities of volunteer experiences and encounters. Drawing on fieldwork from a small coastal town in Peru, the study focuses on the encounters between volunteers and locals and the role of emotions in the framing of their experiences. While emotions and expectations are often framed by development aid discourses that characterise volunteers and locals into neo-colonial binaries, there are also numerous possibilities for how volunteers and locals are ‘affected’. By attending to the ‘more than rational’ dimensions of the volunteer tourism experience I draw out the relationship between embodiment, affect and what philosopher of hope Bloch (1986) calls the ‘ontology of the-not-yet’. It is within the embodied encounters in spaces of ‘the-not-yet-become’ where hopeful possibilities in volunteer tourism are found’ This opens up new ways of understanding volunteer tourism. This may, in turn, facilitate more responsible and equitable practice in volunteer tourism projects.

摘要

志愿旅游已迅速发展为当前广泛存在的全球旅游现象。本文考察了在志愿旅游分析引入非表征性理论的意义。学术界经常在文化、认同与权力关系等固定概念框架下讨论志愿旅游问题。在本文中, 我主张应关注具身性、情感和情绪概念, 因为它们在分析志愿体验与遭遇的模糊地带方面能够提供更细微的洞察。本研究利用秘鲁海边小镇的田野调查, 聚焦志愿者与当地人的交流以及情绪在分析他们体验方面的作用。尽管情绪和期望经常在发展援助话语下讨论, 该话语使得志愿者与当地人的交流具有新殖民主义二元论的特征, 但是在分析志愿者与当地人如何相互影响方面也有许多分析的可能空间。我通过关注志愿旅游体验‘超越理性’的方面, 引发出具身性、情感和希望哲学家布洛赫(1995)提出的 ‘尚未实体论’ 关系的讨论。正是在‘尚未实现空间’中的亲身遭遇才发现了志愿旅游中存在诸多有希望的可能分析空间。这为理解志愿旅游开辟了新的分析方法, 进而有助于在志愿旅游项目中培育更负责、更公平的做法。

KEYWORDS:

• Volunteer tourism
• non-representational theory
• affect
• emotion
• development aid
• neoliberalism
• hope
• 'the not-yet-become

关键词:

• 志愿旅游
• 非表征理论
• 感情
• 情绪
• 发展援助
• 新自由主义
• 希望
• 尚未实现性

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to my Ph.D. supervisors Dr Paul Hodge and Dr Tamara Young for all their help with this article. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback. Thank you also to the Otra Cosa and all those who agreed to participate in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Phoebe Everingham

Phoebe Everingham is a Ph.D. student in the Discipline of Geography & Environmental Studies at the University of Newcastle Australia. Her research focus is volunteer tourism in South America where she has developed relationships with two organisations in Peru and Ecuador. Phoebe is particularly interested in the ways in which volunteer tourism can foster intercultural understanding and mutuality drawing on postcolonial, decolonial and affective theories.