Ethical Communication In Humanitarian Travels

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In Photography and travel brochures: the circle of representation, Olivia Jenkins explains the “spiral of representation” in which images created by tourists are reproduced and propagated as true representations of other cultures. In Humanitarian Travels: Ethical Communication in “Lonely Planet” Guidebooks, Debbie Lisle explores the culture of responsible independent travel that Lonely Planet guidebooks promote and how humanitarian travel problematically reinforces colonialism. Both texts acknowledge the inherent colonialism in guidebooks and Lisle seeks to explain how efforts to combat oppressive travelling can backfire and reinforce that oppression.

I came across the concept of humanitarian tourism or “voluntourism” in high school. In …show more content…
As he outlines, humanitarian tourism promotes the “white saviour industrial complex” which carries colonial overtones, reproduces “ignorant, racist stereotypes”, make significant profits on others’ misery (or perceived misery) and fails to “address systematic poverty” (Hernann). Ian Birrell writes Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/orphans-cambodia-aids-holidays-madonna) in which he explains the damaging effects of voluntourism. He cites a study on “Aids Orphan Tourism” that found that “Wealthy tourists prevent local workers from getting much-needed jobs, especially when they pay to volunteer; hard-pressed institutions waste time looking after them and money upgrading facilities; and abused or abandoned children form emotional attachments to the visitors, who increase their trauma by disappearing back home” (Birrell). Critics have argued that that the voluntourism industry is a “new form of colonialism” (Birrell) in which the host countries reproduce the conditions voluntourist expect. Unicef even found an increase in unregistered orphanages in which many of the children were not orphans and “children’s welfare was secondary to profits” (Birrell). The demand for
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