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Why I stopped being a voluntourist

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Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#111

Post by pekru »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #95
mattlutze wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not blindly ethnocentric, it's the OP's thesis based on a feminist critique of the existing business culture in an area OP built a business. His/Her observations were that, for his/her employees, western business culture was potentially an improvement over existing conditions. OP in particular observes on experiencing lingering caste pressures and strongly misogynistic trends in the expectation of business en…

> western business culture was potentially an improvement over existing conditions // Western business culture is primarily "profit is the end that justifies the means" - exploit any person, resource or environment to their|it's detriment as longer as you make more profit for the owners/shareholders. Many times I've seen on HN "the purpose of a business is to make profit; stat". Equality, helping those in poverty, cu…

Am very sure the above comment would get downvoted. Well, the West is always right, cause they have got the money!

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#114

Post by yaix »

> THE PROBLEM WITH LITTLE WHITE GIRLS

After a year in East Africa, that was one of the things I noticed here: they always come in pairs of 20-year-old white girls. Except for South East Asia, many more young men there.

> $3000 bought us a week at an orphanage

That can actually cause children being obducted or "borrowed" to staff orphanages for white Voluntourists.

> Our mission while at the orphanage was to build a library.

And another 10 African carpenters who lost a job to those white Santa-Clauses.

> have a camp run and executed by Dominicans

Good luck. I have never seen any organization actually run locally. Sure, it often looks like it is, but if you digg a little deeper, you always find at least one Westener (or local who lived half their life in the West) making sure that people actually do things and not just spend the money and idle. But there maybe one such organization, somewhere, I just haven't found it yet.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#115

Post by htns »

Something which everyone so far has failed to mention is corruption. Tanzania is hardly the model of democracy. Putting some foreigners into the mix brings some extra certainty on how the money gets spent, even if the foreigners have their own perverse incentives.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#116

Post by pekru »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #37

If you want to do voluntourism, I suggest something different: start a business or help set up an outsourcing center. You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about western business practices. I'm told by my former coworkers that my standard US egalitarianism was quite unusual. By "egalitarianism", I simply mean "I'm CTO, you are a mechanical turk, we can go eat pancakes and you aren't obli…

> If you want to do voluntourism, I suggest something different: start a business ... You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about western business practices.

Yeah right. Unfortunately, it might have been too much of positivity for this kid from Bhopal (http://media2.intoday.in/indiatoday/images/Photo_gallery/060...) to handle.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#117

Post by Fomite »

makomk wrote: post #87
gnerd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But drop me in India and I'm suddenly a crazy feminist ranting against rape culture (FYI India has one, the US doesn't). So none of those men in US jails and prisons are being raped? You should enjoy another country without imposing your values on them, it is OK for you to like or love your way of life, you are absolutely allowed to be proud, and so are they. What is not in good taste is assuming your way is always…

The usual feminist meaning of "rape culture" these days doesn't include prison rape (at least not when it's happening to men). Indeed, I've seen people labelled as anti-feminists and misogynists for suggesting it does. It usually though not always encompasses prison rape jokes because those are considered to harm women, but not the rape itself. From a modern feminist perspective, billboards of scantily-clad women hav…

I don't know a single feminist who doesn't consider prison rape, regardless of the gender of the assailant and victim, to be horrific.

Indeed, many discussions of rape culture do expressly talk about prison rape, and the notion of sexualized violence as a means of punishment.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#118

Post by pekru »

anu_gupta wrote: post #68
yummyfajitas wrote: post #37

If you want to do voluntourism, I suggest something different: start a business or help set up an outsourcing center. You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about western business practices. I'm told by my former coworkers that my standard US egalitarianism was quite unusual. By "egalitarianism", I simply mean "I'm CTO, you are a mechanical turk, we can go eat pancakes and you aren't obli…

Well done you, for bringing your values to your culturally inferior employees, and teaching them the ways of "western style management".

A part of my mind says this comment is sarcastic. If that is the case, well, I guess us culturally inferior workers should be thankful that someone took the burden of teaching us the ways of western style management and enlightening us.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#119

Post by rtkwe »

yaix wrote: post #114

> THE PROBLEM WITH LITTLE WHITE GIRLS After a year in East Africa, that was one of the things I noticed here: they always come in pairs of 20-year-old white girls. Except for South East Asia, many more young men there. > $3000 bought us a week at an orphanage That can actually cause children being obducted or "borrowed" to staff orphanages for white Voluntourists. > Our mission while at the orphanage was to build a l…

Read further on they didn't lose their jobs, their hours just got shifted temporarily.

> Turns out that we, a group of highly educated private boarding school students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild the structure so that, when we woke up in the morning, we would be unaware of our failure.

See? It all comes out in a wash in the end.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#120

Post by [deleted] »

Fomite wrote: post #117
makomk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The usual feminist meaning of "rape culture" these days doesn't include prison rape (at least not when it's happening to men). Indeed, I've seen people labelled as anti-feminists and misogynists for suggesting it does. It usually though not always encompasses prison rape jokes because those are considered to harm women, but not the rape itself. From a modern feminist perspective, billboards of scantily-clad women hav…

I don't know a single feminist who doesn't consider prison rape, regardless of the gender of the assailant and victim, to be horrific. Indeed, many discussions of rape culture do expressly talk about prison rape, and the notion of sexualized violence as a means of punishment.

[deleted]
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