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Why I stopped being a voluntourist

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Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#61

Post by aaron695 »

It's pretty simple stuff where locals work for $10 per day, your labour contribution is only $10 per day for unskilled labour. IE helping orphans, cute animals, quick bouts of teaching etc

As a libertarian I'm big on spending heaps of money on localised products(With low resource costs) while visiting these countries instead, I make an effort to do stuff that normally I might be stingy on. I figure the money trickles through the economy while encouraging local business.

I also donate because it also has relevance, but if you want to help a community while having a great experience, just pay for it.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#62

Post by tawan »

tptacek wrote: post #4
wyager wrote: post #3

>It slows down positive growth and perpetuates the “white savior” complex that, for hundreds of years, has haunted both the countries we are trying to ‘save’ and our (more recently) own psyches. Why does this have anything to do with race? Is it any different for a black person with no useful skills to go on one of these voluntourism trips?

No, as the article explicitly points out.

IMO Yes and I was expecting the article will point that out just by reading the title.

I was in Tanzania a few years ago as a tourist and I came across many young westerners doing all kind of things like HIV prevention. Sometimes I thought I belong to a minority among westerns by just being a tourist.

I was trying to view the situation from the other side. What must it be like to be a black guy living in Tanzania being told by little white teenagers how to have sex? Little black kids getting cool toys only from white folks, all teachers who know cool stuff being white. I don't stretch the argument too much if I claim that you will get the impression that all good things come from white people and that black people are too stupid to even have sex. As an educated person I know that this is not true and I can differ between spurious correlation and real causes, namely growing up in a developed country, but I doubt that little children are able to do so. They will assign many things to skin color just to realize that they can't change their own and then will think they are doomed and have to hope for the good will of the white saviours for the rest of their lives.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#63

Post by mattlutze »

yequalsx wrote: post #54
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…

"You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about western business practices." This is the most ethnocentric thing I've read in quite a long time. Much of the world would be better off, in my opinion, having never learned first hand about western business practices. Western business practices have caused a vast amount of destruction in the developing world.

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 environments. You're suggesting this is preferable to employee equality and industriousness?

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#64

Post by doreo »

10feet wrote: post #26

The choice isn't giving $3000 to be a voluntourist, and give $3000 to a charity to hire locals to do the work. The other choice is to go to Europe and blow $3000 having a good time.

Exactly this, voluntourism is an exchange of money for time spent experiencing a very different culture which you can tell other people about for a long time and also feel good while telling stories to kids or laying bricks. Oh and a week long safari according to the article.

There is very little that is altruistic about the practice and an altruistic option is not an option for most people who go on these trips. I don't know what cut of the $3000 the school in the article got, but if it wasn't enough then I'm sure they wouldn't invite a load of useless white kids around to set their construction back.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#65

Post by gnerd »

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…

> 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 better, assuming they can't solve problems in time as your country has or assuming you or they are their country or responsible for where your/their country currently is economically. When it comes to human rights however, I'm on the same page as you I think, impose away.

I don't eat dogs, some cultures do. I eat beef, some cultures don't. Some eat pork, some don't. Are any of those really ethically wrong, or do we just have different cultures with different reference points? Isn't having different cultures and methods in the world a good thing? You can't always be right, and when you aren't, you might be glad there is another model that exists somewhere in the world. A cultural hedge, if you will.

I look forward to the rise of India in the future, I am sure in time, we will be stealing ideas from there, but perhaps I'm just being naive.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#66

Post by gnerd »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #60
yequalsx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about western business practices." This is the most ethnocentric thing I've read in quite a long time. Much of the world would be better off, in my opinion, having never learned first hand about western business practices. Western business practices have caused a vast amount of destruction in the developing world.

Treating low skill commodity workers as human beings on the same social level as yourself is such a destructive western practice. So is hiring a stranger with a great github rather than your brother in law, hiring a woman if she is the most qualified, etc. Or there is that destructive western practice of managing by output - the boss is working until 8pm but you can go home as soon as you hit your quota. Blaming west…

China is the second largest single country economy on earth and growing. They will be completely covered with healthcare in the next 10 years. They are the largest holders of gold on earth, hold the largest amount of debt from the US. They are developing, but as a nation, they are not poor.

> Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to run things in the modern manner) for the problems of the third world is silly.

It is perhaps a bit silly. I mean, there are actual examples of mining rights being held from colonial times, Dutch East India company, Haiti being forced to pay for slaves freedom from rebellion for 140 years etc. and some of those do still have influences, but I don't think they are the primary ones. I don't, however, think all of these values are always exclusively western though. Japan has worker rights, as far as I can tell from a cursory glance on Wikipedia.

Assuming India wants, or needs foreign influence, Japan is just as good a place to get it.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#67

Post by gnerd »

kumarski wrote: post #44

The number one way to help people in the 3rd world is find hungry competent entrepreneurs in the country and ask them about their problems.

This sounds like a great approach to the problem but how would one go about finding those people? Were you thinking SME level or street vendor level?

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#68

Post by anu_gupta »

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".

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#69

Post by yardie »

spiritplumber wrote: post #55
auctiontheory wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am certainly less snarky about kids going to do unskilled construction labor. Most middle-class Americans could find a neighborhood within 15-minutes drive that could really use their help. But "my adventures in East Palo Alto" just isn't as exciting on a law school application, or a date, as "tales of Eritrea."

Pretty much this. Go to Habitat for Humanity and if you live in a city they'll generally be doing something local.

H4H was virtually packed when I volunteered. They had a waiting list for every college and university in the area. Apparently all those frats and sororities need a certain number of volunteer hours. Summertime, when building projects are usually in full swing, they didn't have nearly enough volunteers as the students typically were home or interning.

Re: Why I stopped being a voluntourist

#70

Post by yummyfajitas »

gnerd wrote: post #66
yummyfajitas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating low skill commodity workers as human beings on the same social level as yourself is such a destructive western practice. So is hiring a stranger with a great github rather than your brother in law, hiring a woman if she is the most qualified, etc. Or there is that destructive western practice of managing by output - the boss is working until 8pm but you can go home as soon as you hit your quota. Blaming west…

China is the second largest single country economy on earth and growing. They will be completely covered with healthcare in the next 10 years. They are the largest holders of gold on earth, hold the largest amount of debt from the US. They are developing, but as a nation, they are not poor. > Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to ru…

Westernized might have been the wrong word. Perhaps modern would be better. And yes, both India and the us can (and have) adopt some Japanese business practices as well.

And we certainly can learn from India - that's a blog post idea. A bit more emo hipster than what I usually post, but maybe I'll do it anyway.

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