The positive impact of othering in voluntourism: The role of the relational other in becoming another self

ABSTRACT

Despite initial enthusiasm about the potential of voluntourism to promote sustainable development and intercultural learning, recent critiques have focused on voluntourists’ tendency to reinforce status differences by “Othering” their hosts. This study expands the literature on Othering in international voluntourism contexts by examining how local community members who interacted with voluntourists interpreted the Self–Other relationship. Based on longitudinal focus group data from four host communities, the findings showed that the categories of “Self” and “Other” were not fixed but fluid, permeable, and dynamic. The study suggests that the Othering process can open up unexpected relational spaces and reconfigure community–voluntourist relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Voluntourism
• othering
• Self–Other relationships
• interactional positioning
• relational other

Acknowledgements

We thank first and foremost the community members and NGO representatives in the host communities who are at the heart of this research project. We are also grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for their encouragement and thoughtful engagement with our work. We appreciated the insights of Jim Taylor, François Cooren, Daniel Robichaud and Chantal Benoit-Barné about the self-other relationship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Kirstie McAllum http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4585-2288