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ERIC Number: EJ1374336
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1066-5684
EISSN: EISSN-1547-3457
Learning to Enact Canadian Exceptionalism: The Failure of Voluntourism as Social Justice Education
Angod, Leila
Equity & Excellence in Education, v55 n3 p217-230 2022
"Voluntourism," or "volunteer abroad," is a form of travel involving unpaid work intended to benefit a local community. Critiques of voluntourism as reproducing and, indeed, perpetuating global inequities are yielding a re-framing of voluntourism around principles of "partnership" and "equality." Drawing from ethnographic data, this article analyzes one school's efforts to establish and leverage a voluntourism program as social justice education. I trace a reversible discourse of inspiration ("I inspire Others" and "I am inspired by Others") to demonstrate how elite school students, white and of color, transmute extractive relationships with their Black South African peers into "feeling good about doing good," thus becoming an exceptional Canadian subject: the global (girl) citizen. The findings have implications for understanding voluntourism as a salient site for grooming young elites to participate in the production of the white settler state. This article demonstrates how voluntourism fails as social justice education, and provokes a larger debate about abolishing school-based voluntourism.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada; South Africa
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A