Volunteer Tourism: A Path to Buen Vivir?

of Chapter 1 Chapter One outlines how the author’s initial understanding of volunteer tourism was unsettled during the thesis, and the journey to re-conceptualising this tourism practice through the alternative worldview of Buen Vivir. Abstract of Chapter 2of Chapter 2 Chapter Two analyses the genealogy of the literatures relating to development and volunteer tourism, tracing their shifting patterns. It concludes with a conceptual framework, illustrating how current understanding of volunteer tourism and development sit within the academic literature, whilst also pointing to avenues to be explored in the empirical chapters. Abstract of Chapter 3of Chapter 3 Chapter Three provides an explanation of the methodology employed in the thesis. It outlines the epistemological and ontological stance adopted, as well as the data collection methods utilised. The decisions made throughout the thesis are justified in relation to theoretical arguments and practical considerations. Abstract of Chapter 4of Chapter 4 Chapter Four contextualises the study by tracing the genealogy of Buen Vivir and tourism at the national level in Ecuador. It argues that the Ecuadorian state has both enshrined Buen Vivir as a national political objective, and designated tourism as an important mechanism for its realisation. The chapter proposes that despite utilising the discourses of Buen Vivir, the Ecuadorian state employs practices typical of the neoliberal agenda. Abstract of Chapter 5of Chapter 5 Chapter Five analyses the processes and negotiations which occur when an indigenous community becomes a site for volunteer tourism. It argues that volunteer tourism incorporates indigenous communities into the global tourism industry, thereby transforming it from a place of residence into a commercial volunteer space. It argues that this volunteer space is a simulacrum, an indigenous community that never existed beyond western imaginaries. Volunteer Tourism: A Path to Buen Vivir? Doctoral Dissertation Summary. 220 Abstract of Chapter 6 Chapter Six offers an analysis of indigenous members’ participation and interpretation of volunteer tourism within their community. Framed within the context of forms of capital, specifically social, financial, cultural and human capital, the chapter illustrates the likelihood of community members’ involvement in volunteer tourism projects. It then brings to the fore the different cultural sets, which influence indigenous members’ interpretation of volunteer tourism in their community. It shows that individuals involved in the project frame volunteer tourism practices according to neo-liberal discourses. Conversely, indigenous members excluded from the volunteer tourism projects critique its practices through the discourses of Buen Vivir. Abstract of Chapter 7of Chapter 7 Chapter Seven deconstructs the volunteer tourists’ identities within the indigenous communities studied. It argues that volunteer tourists have a fluid, ambivalent identity, through their role as both volunteer and tourist. It identifies specific moments in which this ambivalent state dissolves, and when a clear volunteer or tourist identity is acknowledged. This chapter subsequently argues that volunteer tourists strategically manage and narrate their experience in the indigenous communities to achieve desirable outcomes. Abstract of Chapter 8of Chapter 8 Chapter Eight takes stock of the major arguments of this thesis, namely that volunteer tourism embodies the spirit of neoliberal development models, whilst Buen Vivir provides a critical avenue for unsettling this agenda, by providing a framework through which alternative possibilities can be imagined. The chapter reinforces the thesis contribution to the existing literature, and points to possible avenues of future research.