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Volunteer tourism and “The White Man’s Burden”: globalization of suffering, white savior complex, religion and modernity

Abstract While many volunteer tourism studies have acknowledged the significance of volunteer tourism and challenged conventional understandings of socio-economic change in the Global South, the ways in which ideas about globalization of suffering and religion and modernity flow through volunteer tourism and development discourses are rarely spoken about. Utilizing postcolonialism and whiteness studies theoretical framework, this study intends to take volunteer tourism research into a different trajectory by arguing that much like imperialism is operationalized through different kinds of institutional power (agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank), similarly volunteer tourism exerts power and exploits the Orient as the West’s pleasure periphery. Taking the case of Mother Teresa, this study also argues that Christian ideologies, which were so dominant during the colonial days, continue to pervade the structures and institutions in society with similar hegemonic connotations of privilege based on religion and race. Future tourism scholars should investigate these remarkable yet somewhat ignored issues in contemporary volunteer tourism practices.