Embedded Files
Palacios 2022
Citizenship Studies, Vol. 26(2): 221-244.
Skeptically Self-governed Citizens: The 'volunteer!' injunction as a predicament of neoliberal life
This article explores the problem of political responsibility in post-globalized contexts.
It shows how the experience of cosmopolitan citizenship that is nowadays sold as a 'volunteer tourism package' or advertised as a 'development aid internship' is likely to be approached with a level of skepticism.
Excerpt
Excerpt
"The young adults who have spent several weeks or months doing volunteer work in the field are likely to feel these days that, in having done so, they may have paradoxically engaged in a misguided act of global citizenship that is ultimately irresponsible (whether their concerns relate to women’s rights, decolonial aid, environmental responsibility or equality of opportunity), thus rendering them ‘complicit’ for being, as a participant put it, ‘part of the problem rather than being part of the solution.’" (p.236)
Palacios 2010
Journal of Sustainable Tourism, vol. 18(7): 861-878.
Volunteer Tourism, Development and Education in a Postcolonial World: Conceiving global connections beyond aid
This paper counter-balances the claim of volunteer travel as "neo-colonialism" by stressing how colonial-like it is to judge young volunteers under the assumption that they should be striving to bring about development.
I wrote this paper a long time ago as part of my master's degree in applied anthropology. It has been influential in the interdisciplinary field of tourism studies as well as mentioned in a number of public forums.
Mention
Mention
"Carlos Palacios, Ph.D., of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, argues that voluntourism is the only type of travel that’s vilified as colonialistic. Programs that describe themselves as service learning, cultural exchange, or educational tourism 'have not got into this kind of trouble', he notes. I came to see myself more as an intern than a volunteer: someone who did small but necessary work—dish washing, data entry, trash collecting—while receiving an education about a place and its challenges." Kevin Budd, National Geographic." (p.236)
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