Don’t Be Like This Guy: Reflections on the Ethics and Economics of International Volunteeringprint story

March 22, 2012

Willy Oppenheim

I have wanted to write a reflection about the ‘Gap Yah’ video ever since I first saw it on Youtube a few months ago. The video depicts a posh young British male gloating to his friends about his recent experiences traipsing multiple continents on a ‘Gap Yah,’ observing a “woman with malaria” in Africa and having a “spiritual cultural political experience” in Burma. The character’s descriptions of other people are patronizing in every way, and his self-righteous retellings of his own ‘going native’ are ironically juxtaposed against stories of his partying and being offensive. A ‘sequel’ shows the same character campaigning on his campus to ‘save the children’ by having a fundraising party, and his motivations and means for ‘helping them’ appear equally dubious and distasteful.

These videos capture some of the ugliest aspects of the sphere in which Omprakash operates—and yet for this exact reason, I find them strangely encouraging. No viewer could miss the fact that these videos are satirical, and thus I take their existence—and their millions of views—to signal an acute public awareness of the problematic trends that their protagonist represents. My ongoing hope is that the Omprakash network can also work to develop and maintain this sort of critical awareness, and that by doing so it can act as a bulwark against this trend rather than an engine of its perpetuation.

In this sense, I am grateful for the ‘Gap Yah’ videos, because they—along with a diverse range of other popular and academic critiques—encourage the sort of humility, reflexivity, and self-consciousness that Omprakash aims to promote. In this essay, I want to briefly summarize some of these critiques, and then to describe how they inform the work of Omprakash and our efforts to encourage critical dialogue and reflexivity throughout our diverse network. This essay is meant to be an invitation for further dialogue, so I encourage readers to follow some of the links below, to read widely, and then to come back and contribute some of their own critical views to this process.

Problems

The concerns raised by the ‘Gap Yah’ video are not novel, nor are they a comprehensive account of the many things that can go ‘wrong’ with the wide array of behaviors that can be loosely captured by descriptors such as international volunteering, cross-cultural exchange, voluntourism, and poverty porn. For a very useful ‘taxonomy of development tourism’ that helps distinguish between the diverse ways that different people and programs engage in this sort of activity, see this helpful post on Aaron Ausland’s blog, Staying for Tea. Ausland provides links to a number of other blogs that confront these issues, including Good Intentions are Not Enough, Aid Watch, and Dispatches. Further critiques of the phenomenon of international volunteering can be found through the insightful critiques of organizations such as PEPY Tours, who offer a primer on VolunTourism 101 and some great Tips for the Responsible Traveler. These sites provide great resources to help prospective volunteers become more reflective and self-conscious, and at Omprakash we work to encourage all of our volunteers to engage openly and honestly with the critiques that such blogs articulate.

Beyond the blogosphere, another useful introduction to such concerns can be found in the robust academic literature critiquing the ‘development’ efforts of governments, international NGO’s, and financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The work of these macro-level institutions is significantly different than the grassroots individual efforts to ‘do good’ that are satirized in the ‘Gap Yah’ videos, but the critical work of scholars such as William Easterly, Dambisa Moyo, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, and Paul Collier is relevant nonetheless. Readers interested in watching a debate between several eminent academics on the topic of “Does Aid do More Harm Than Good?” might enjoy the ‘Munk Debate’ found here.

Below, I offer a very cursory sketch of some of the major threads of argument within these vast overlapping fields of scholarship and criticism. Needless to say, the thematic categories I outline below are often intertwined, and I could never hope to do justice to the complexities of these arguments in this short reflection. Nonetheless, it seems valuable to offer a basic snapshot of some of the recurring critiques that we work to keep in mind.

• International volunteering perpetuates neo-colonialism, cultural imperialism, and/or first-world paternalism.

This stream of criticism concerns itself with the ways that efforts to ‘do good’ can become exercises of self-righteous arrogance that seek to justify their own existence by portraying ‘the poor’ as helpless, incompetent, and desperately in need of help—even if that help comes in the form of a naïve teenager with no relevant skills and no knowledge of local histories and customs. A recurring theme here is that any effort to ‘empower’ others is inherently power-laden and thus potentially disempowering. Relevant authors include Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich.

• The intent of wealthier people to ‘see poverty’ is voyeuristic and ethically dubious.

This sort of critique becomes particularly salient in relation to the sort of drop-in-drop-out ‘slum tours’ (refer again to Ausland’s taxonomy) that Omprakash very deliberately works to avoid by encouraging long-term community-based volunteering. Even in the case of longer visits, though, some might argue that the intent to help ‘the poor’ actually ends up exoticizing and romanticizing ‘the poor’ and smothering their voices and stories beneath the self-congratulatory narratives of those with more power. At stake here are crucial questions of representation: are you letting people speak for themselves, or are you (and your camera) simply slotting them into a preconceived notion of ‘the poor’ or ‘the third world’? Put differently: does your burning desire to ‘help others’ actually allow you to listen to them? Relevant academic conversations have emerged in relation to the landmark work of Edward Said and Gayatree Spivak, particularly Spivak's concern with 'subaltern' voices. In a different sense, much of the current buzz around the Kony 2012 video touches on these same issues.

• They don’t need your help!

You dug a ditch, painted a fence, and taught the ABC’s. What makes you think the local people couldn’t have done the same? On that note, how do you know that your volunteer efforts didn’t put someone else out of a job? This sort of critique emerges in anecdotal form through many insightful blogs such as Lessons I Learned, and it is a close cousin of the many academic arguments about how markets can deliver needed goods much more efficiently than sentimental NGO’s or bureaucratic ‘aid’ agencies. A particularly cutting example can be found in the writing of William Easterly about the struggle of to successfully deliver anti-malarial bed nets to communities in Africa, and Dambisa Moyo’s book ‘Dead Aid’ follows the well-worn track of this critique.

• Aid stifles markets and lets governments off the hook, and thus is unsustainable/unscalable.

Again, writers like Moyo and Easterly are relevant here—but so are the reflections of individual volunteers such as this one.

• Your dollars are endorsing corruption and exploitation.

There is no shortage of stories from volunteers who have been dismayed to realize that their donations or ‘program fees’ are mostly going into the pocket of a single ‘project leader,’ while the project itself remains painfully under-funded. One good series of examples—particularly relevant to the frightening trend of ‘orphanage tourism’—can be heard on this podcast from Daniela Papi.

• Children are not tourist attractions.

Almost all of the concerns described above become even more severe when volunteers are working with children. In such cases, we need to be particularly worried about issues of voyeurism, sustainability (or lack thereof), and possible exploitation.

• Whatever happened to ‘think local’?

‘Sure, those people in exotic other countries need help—but what about needy people in your own hometown?’ This is by all means a valid question, and becomes even more urgent in relation to concerns about environmental responsibilities and the high carbon emissions associated with air travel.

Responses

In light of these multifaceted concerns, how do we justify the work of Omprakash? Is our network part of the problem, or does it constitute a meaningful set of responses to these problems? I will let the reader decide.

To start with, I should admit my own ongoing personal struggles and doubts in relation to the concerns described above (here's a podcast in which I discuss this process). In the early years of Omprakash, I often felt so overwhelmed by these critiques that I considered abandoning the whole effort. Today, I recognize that these doubts are healthy, even vital: by trying to remain open to critical feedback from within our network and beyond, my co-administrators and I strive to avoid the risk of falling into a self-constructed echo chamber within which our work appears always and immutably ‘good.’ Instead, we try to embrace the complexities that limit the validity of any single version of ‘good,’ and through our honest engagement with these complexities we hope to make sensitive and well-informed decisions when charting a course through the daily challenges that arise within our network.

Put more concretely: the bedrock of our organizational philosophy—our ‘theory of change,’ as some would call it—is a belief in the power of human relationships and human dialogue. We do not look for easy answers or black and white ‘truths’; we look for honest collaborators who are willing to help us navigate the grey areas with their transparency and open-mindedness. This is not just an abstract vision; it is a methodology that informs the structure of our website and that provides the substance of our response to each of the important concerns outlined above.

• International volunteering perpetuates neo-colonialism, cultural imperialism, and/or first-world paternalism.

There are at least three ways that our model works to reduce the likelihood of this possibility. The first is simply that our Partner organizations apply to join our network on their own accord, and retain full autonomy in the process of describing their needs and inviting volunteers or other supporters. The second is that we try to avoid allowing Partners to become overly reliant on foreign volunteers and donations that might lead to unhealthy relationships of dependency. Our discouragement of ‘volunteer fees’ is related to this issue—see more below. Thirdly, and crucially, we work to expose volunteers to the wisdom of others, and we hope that this leads to an educational process through which volunteers become more sensitive, more open to difference, and more conscious of their own subtle biases and intentions. In other words, by encouraging volunteers to read stories on our site, to browse our archive of Travel Resources, and to read blog posts like this one, we hope to make them more responsible citizens and ambassadors of our network. Taken together, the combination of these three points does not eliminate the possibility that some ‘Gap Yah’ attitudes could persist, but it seems to significantly mitigate that risk.

• The intent of wealthier people to ‘see poverty’ is voyeuristic and ethically dubious.

We encourage volunteers to spend a minimum of four weeks with our Partners, and to live as ‘close to the ground’ as possible during their experience in our network. Some Partners require that volunteers commit for as much as six months or more. This sort of longer-term, community-based involvement seems to avoid the major risks of ‘poverty porn’ and similar trends described above (again, see Ausland’s taxonomy), and tends to allow volunteers to see more nuanced lives and stories emerge from within the imagined monolith of ‘the poor.’ On the other hand, our network does include some Partners who welcome visitors for even just a day—and we consider this to be their prerogative. While we certainly encourage longer-term relationships, we also realize that even a brief—and possibly voyeuristic—glimpse of the social issues that our Partners confront can inspire many visitors to learn more and get involved in the future.

• They don’t need your help!

Again, it seems that we avoid the risk of perpetuating ‘useless’ volunteer experiences by allowing Partners to decide when and under what conditions to invite a volunteer. This sort of concern also becomes part of our logic for asking Partners not to charge ‘overhead fees’ to volunteers. We certainly do not want Partners to be losing money by hosting volunteers, and we welcome them to ask volunteers to pay for basic expenses, but we do not want the promise of a ‘weekly payment’ to be the main reason that a Partner invites a volunteer. Instead, we try to encourage Partners to find volunteers that fulfill genuine needs of the organization—even if that need is something as simple as tutoring in conversational English or teaching basic computer skills.

• Aid stifles markets and lets governments off the hook, and thus is unsustainable/unscalable.

Make no mistake about it: we fully acknowledge that social projects are often most powerful when they harness market forces and engage government actors. Some of our Partners run small clinics or schools that are funded entirely by private donations, and we worry about the sustainability of such efforts. With that said, we also recognize that long-term structural change can take a long time to gain momentum, and we are proud to support a wide range of grassroots projects that are working to provide needed services in the meantime. Moreover, initiatives like our Partner Sustainability Grant work to encourage Partners to lessen donor dependency by exploring possibilities of market-based revenue generation.

• Your dollars are endorsing corruption and exploitation.

Again, this risk is one reason we discourage volunteer-Partner relationships that are predicated upon the payment of ‘volunteer fees.’ Moreover, by requiring Partners to use our public-facing expense reporting system, we help donors keep track of their money and we help Partners build transparency and accountability.

• Children are not tourist attractions.

This is an issue we take especially seriously. Many of our Partners do not ask volunteers to work with children, and by no means would we pressure them to do so. Among those that do request volunteers for this purpose, we encourage them to complete a thorough background check on the volunteer, and to require the volunteer to commit significant time and energy to the project.

• Whatever happened to ‘think local’?

Omprakash is a global network, but the core vision of this network is not about ‘helping others who live far away’; it is about enabling relationships that are mutually beneficial and mutually educational. The most exciting projects in our network involve volunteers ‘coming home’ to share their experiences with teachers and students in their home communities, and our great hope is that international experiences within our network help volunteers develop into more thoughtful and responsible citizens at home. With that said, there is no denying that international air travel exerts a heavy burden on our environment, and we can only encourage volunteers to be conscious of this and to try to compensate for it through modifying other consumer habits.

Closing Remarks

It seems inevitable that the trend of international travel is not going to disappear—if anything, it will only increase. There is no doubt that these interactions of people from divergent social, cultural, and economic backgrounds will continue to raise a wide range of thorny ethical and theoretical questions of the sort that frame the ‘Gap Yah’ satire. I would never suggest that Omprakash can ‘answer’ such questions, but I do think it provides an empowering forum within which they can be explored.

I remain uncertain about whether or not foreign volunteers—or foreign donations, for that matter—can independently create positive social change in the ‘development’ context. The more I learn, the more I feel that such change depends first and foremost upon good governance and leadership on the local level. Yet the goal of Omprakash has never been about ‘saving the day.’ More than anything else, we want the members of our network to build relationships, to tell stories, and to ask questions. Such processes might not lead to any ultimate conclusions about how to ‘do good,’ but we believe that they will at least lead to meaningful learning experiences for everyone involved, and that this sort of learning is a necessary precursor for informed social action in the world we share.

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