Volunteer Tourism

Jim Butcher teaches at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. His research interests lie in the sociology and politics of tourism. Peter Smith teaches at St Mary's University, UK. His main areas of interest lie in the sociology of volunteer and ecotourism.

• 1. Introducing the lifestyle politics of volunteer tourism 2. From Peace Corps to Volunteer Holidays 3. Volunteer tourism in development perspective 4. The Personal and the Political in Volunteer Tourism 5. The lifestyle politics of volunteer tourism 6. Volunteer tourism and global citizenship 7. The Volunteers: Postcolonial, Neoliberal or Diminished Subjects? 8. Conclusion

"Butcher and Smith have provided the definitive unpacking and critical analysis of the mainstreaming of volunteer tourism. Reading this book may change your life more than doing a gap year and will make you think about volunteer tourism differently and with insight." – Professor Kevin Hannam, Leeds Beckett University, UK"Butcher and Smith’s fascinating study goes beyond the existing debates on volunteer tourism to consider the changing nature of contemporary politics and international development. They explore how volunteer tourism involves the search for social meaning against the shrinking of the public political imagination. Volunteer tourism assumes significance because of how politics and development have become re-orientated around projects of therapeutic self-realisation as opposed to national material transformation. Indeed they suggest that volunteer tourism outsources the responsibilities of cultivating global citizenship onto the South. The book raises important questions for those of us seeking to understand North-South relations and politics today." – Dr Vanessa Pupavac, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, UK