3.4.Concluding discussion
This study illustrated the capitalist logic behind the volunteering experience. Our findings converge with previous research of other products (Costa 1999, Costa
& Varman) and are in line with post-development scholar (e.g. Escobar, 1995;
Rahnema & Bawtree, 1997). The marketing of the three sending shows development and postcolonial discourse.
Chapitre3.Volunteer tourism mystification: A global capitalism with a human face
The neo-colonial and neoliberal potential of the volunteer tourism is still debated as shown previously. For example, Butcher and Smith (2015) claim that volunteer tourism is not linked to colonialism or neoliberalism because these issues are much more severe to be mediated by individuals. According to them, volunteer tourism reflected a lifestyle politic motivated by the emptiness of the political scene and materialized by consumption. However, it could not pretend to have a real political agenda.
I agree that volunteer tourism is becoming a part of the western lifestyle under the fashion of moral consumption and global citizenship. However, we cannot neglect the importance and predominant role of media and communication in carrying norms and shaping mind-sets. Humanitarianism and development have never been as fashionable and sexy as today. According to Lilie Chouliaraki (2006, p.3): “ It is these ethical values, embedded in news discourse, that come to orientate the spectator’s attitude towards the distant sufferer and, in the long run, shape the disposition of television publics vis-à-vis the misfortune of far away others.”
In the same fashion, the volunteer tourism sending organizations may not have a declared political agenda, like it was the case of Peace Corps in 1964.
However, by co-opting the political agenda of development, they are participating actively in reinforcing postcolonial ideology and promoting the culture of the supremacy of the west over the rest.
More importantly, by co-opting the development agenda and making poverty accessible, they are trivializing the global injustice issue and giving a sentimental answer to political problems Mostafanezhad (2013). I argue that to depoliticize a political subject is to do politics and hence volunteer tourism has a political agenda whether intentionally or not.
Chapitre3.Volunteer tourism mystification: A global capitalism with a human face
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Chapitre 4. Consuming poverty in the volunteer tourism experience: An