When Kimberly Lucht volunteered with Panama-based dance service nonprofit Movement Exchange in 2012, the experience of teaching dance to at-risk youth inspired many discussions relating to race and racism in dance among her fellow volunteers. For researchers Zoe Luba and Dr. David Thomas of Mount Allison University in Canada, those are exactly the type of […]
In 2004, Justin Francis decided to visit Phuket on vacation. It certainly wouldn’t seem out-of-the ordinary for a Westerner to holiday in Phuket – after all, a little less than 3.5 million non-Thais visited the island in 2004. But his excursion to the popular tourist destination didn’t come at the best of times. Phuket – […]
Goodbye Benevolent Savior; Hello Flawed Altruist The narrative of a brave white savior swooping in to the developing world and saving the needy is dead. Or, at least, it’s no longer welcome. Take Louise Linton’s recent account of her gap year in Zambia, which appeared in both book and article form this last spring. Linton’s […]
Volunteer tourism, or “voluntourism,” is the practice in which tourists incorporate charity work into their travels abroad. Over the past few years, this travel industry trend has become a recurrent source of controversy and has left many wondering whether it is possible to ethically volunteer abroad at all. Despite the recent deluge of headlines on […]
