- Title
- Reciprocity in volunteer tourism and travelism
- Creator
- Lyons, Kevin D.
- Relation
- Challenges in Tourism Research p. 106-111
- Relation
- http://www.multilingual-matters.com/channel_view.asp
- Publisher
- Channel View Publications
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- A provocative duality is proposed by Wearing, Grabowski and Small in this volume. The volunteer tourist is presented as an heir apparent hailing from a Grand Tourist lineage. This lineage is purported to be constructed on the foundations of an altruistically inclined stance of cultural understanding albeit coupled with an embedded self-development agenda. In contrast a more scathing portrayal of the 'tourist' is presented as one who seeks to satiate hedonistic desires by engaging in safely packaged experiences that ultimately disempower other host communities. This narrative has merit insofar as it represents an ongoing wellintentioned effort among volunteer tourism scholars to ensure this relatively new manifestation of travelism is not co-opted by the hegemony of broader commodifying processes in the tourism industry. However, relatively simplistic binaries of traveller/tourist and altruist/hedonist mask the dynamic interactions that take place in spaces between. Here, I highlight how altruism and hedonism do not form two ends of a spectrum but rather a point of connection in an egoistic loop. Reciprocity becomes an important mechanism that disrupts the focus upon altruism and the 'altruistic pleasures' it affords, instead placing attention on the nature of an exchange imperative that is central to both volunteer tourism and it's travelism pedigree.
- Subject
- reciprocity; tourism; travelism; altruism; hedonsim
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1309642
- Identifier
- uon:21921
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781845415327
- Language
- eng
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