Volunteer tourism in Romania as/for global citizenship

Abstract

This paper examines short-term, volunteer tourism in Romania as a form of education for global citizenship. Drawing upon data collected through participant observation and qualitative interviews with numerous stakeholders, we argue that global citizenship education in this programme not only aligns with neoliberal governmentality, as others have deftly pointed out vis-à-vis volunteer tourism more broadly, but also has troubling implications for volunteering as civic engagement. Due to a short length of stay, a significant language barrier, limited professional or technical expertise, and a lack of knowledge of the service context, what volunteer tourists were able to do in a Romanian intentional community research context, was extremely limited: they primarily played with children. And while this childcare function occasionally offered pragmatic assistance to local community members, volunteers’ evolving understandings of the purposes and role of volunteering in global citizenship contrasted sharply with other understandings of volunteering – particularly those that frame volunteering as a component of democratic citizenship education.

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