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ABSTRACT
This qualitative research study explores how a group of 27 UK-based undergraduate students made meaning of their experiences as they prepared for, participated in and reflected upon a 10-week international volunteer excursion in Kenya. Through an inspection of repeated semi-structured interviews, and drawing upon the ‘intratourist gaze’ as an analytical framework, this article examines participants’ attempts to highlight distinctions between themselves and other volunteers – a grouping they referred to broadly (and derogatorily) as ‘voluntourists’. In short, participants sought to stake the moral high ground by differentiating between their own volunteer project choice and (1) projects which were shorter term, (2) projects which provided unskilled forms of labour and (3) projects which masqueraded as volunteering, but where the balance of time was actually spent ‘on holiday’. These accounts exhibit a competitive tone (a strong propensity to define and distinguish oneself from others) and help to illuminate the criteria and values upon which these young people evaluated their experiences overseas.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Kaylan C. Schwarz is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This article is drawn from the author’s doctoral thesis project, conducted at the University of Cambridge. Within the larger study, the author also examined the ways international volunteers (1) employed notions of ‘authenticity’ within their personal travel narratives and (2) navigated difficult representational choices when communicating their volunteer experiences to a public audience via social media.