Is It Possible To Create A Common Language For VolunTourism?
I gave a lecture at San Diego State University for Professor Larry Beck’s Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Tourism class earlier this year. (Some of you may remember Larry’s article for The VolunTourist Newsletter – “Here Comes The Sun” – based upon his voluntour to Peru in 2008.) There were approximately 60 students in the room; and, to begin, I asked them to select ten (10) words to describe volunteerism. Here is that list:
- Helping
- Sharing
- Working
- Satisfaction
- Adapting
- Service
- Reward
- Commitment
- Change
- Experience
I then asked them to provide ten (10) words to describe tourism. Here is that list:
- Travel
- Fun
- Vacation
- Learning
- Hotel
- Adventure
- Leisure
- Attraction
- Culture
- Sight-seeing
Amazing! In ten descriptors for each item, not one word was the same – not one. In the minds of these students, the two “isms” were so unrelated that there was no overlap in describing them. So what does this say about “voluntourism,” if it represents an integrated combination of the two?
The students took terms from each category to create the following list for what they consider to be part of voluntourism:
- Experience|Adventure, Culture, Sight-seeing
- Satisfaction|Fun
- Service|Hotel (service should be part of the hotel experience)
- Reward|Vacation, Travel
- Adapting|Travel
By having the two terms side-by-side, with the accompanying descriptors, they were able to connect certain aspects of one (volunteerism) with the other (tourism). In applying this to their class on Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Tourism, it was relatively easy to see that volunteerism and tourism represent two very distinct “cultures.” Is there a way to craft a common language to afford these two cultures an opportunity to relate to one another? Or is the divide so extreme that such an effort consistently teeters on the precipice of implausibility?
The reality is that once you are in the midst of a voluntour these distinctions disintegrate. To suggest that you are a volunteer or a tourist, yet not the other, may satisfy one’s personal preferences and aversions, but does it negate the fact that you are both, simultaneously, in more instances than not? No.
The struggle with a common language is rooted in the “cultures” presented in the media (all forms), in overall public opinion, and, most especially, at the personal level, as to who/what a volunteer is and who/what a tourist is. No one, absolutely no one, it seems wants to be a “stranger in a strange land” tourist. But if we look at the two voluntourism surveys Dr. Nancy McGehee, John Lee, and I ran in 2008, we discover that some people are well-traveled, while others are “well-volunteered.” Some are neither; some are both.
The cultures created by differing perspectives continue to pose a significant challenge in the crafting of a common language. We will likely continue to muddle our way through this until a general consensus is forthcoming -for those seeking a short time-frame, you may want to relax those constraints, this could take some time.
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