Young non-institutionalised volunteer tourists in Guatemala: Exploring youth and self-development

Abstract

This chapter extends the research on the development of the self as an aspect of volunteer tourism experiences by presenting findings from a study of young non-institutionalised volunteer tourists in a developing country. The research builds on earlier work by Wearing (2001; 2002) and Wearing & Deane (2003) which examined the impact of the volunteer tourism experience on the volunteer tourist. In his research with Australian Youth Challenge International volunteer tourists engaged in environmentally focused projects in Costa Rica, Wearing (2001) identified self-development to be one of the outcomes reported by volunteer tourists as a result of the experience. In addition to highlighting the significance of personal development experienced by these volunteers, he also illustrated a few such experiences and classified them into four clusters of self-development. However, to further our understanding of volunteer tourism and volunteer tourists more specifically, there is a need to examine the experiences of volunteer tourists by taking account of contextual factors (Pearce & Coghlan 2008) and to explore the complexity of volunteer tourist motivation (Söderman & Snead 2008). It has also been acknowledged that ‘volunteer tourism’ encompasses many different types of volunteer experiences (Callanan & Thomas, 2005), and that volunteer tourists are not a homogeneous group; different volunteers or groups of volunteers seek experiences according to their personal preoccupations and ambitions (Pearce & Coghlan, 2008). This chapter then seeks to both widen and deepen our understanding of volunteer tourists by exploring the motivations and experiences relevant to the development of the self in the context of a group of volunteers that has not received much academic attention, young non-institutionalised volunteer tourists. This group of volunteer tourists is different to most previous studies on this topic due to a number of factors: the organisation that the individuals volunteered for is a locally run orphanage in Guatemala that is entirely independent of international sending organisations (Casa Guatemala), the respondents stayed at the orphanage for relatively long periods of time (3-12 months), were aged between 18 and 25, represent a range of nationalities, and all volunteered at the orphanage on their own. As such this (presumably less common) group of volunteers could be described as the volunteer tourism equivalent of Cohen’s non-institutionalised travellers (Cohen, 1972) because they are independent of sending organisations, volunteer on their own and have committed to live and work in a poverty stricken developing country. Attempting to position this group in Callanan & Thomas’ (2005) classification framework according to the ‘project’ characteristics, the volunteering experience at the orphanage is best described as a deep volunteer tourism project; however some of the classification criteria are debatable.