THE POLITICS OF AESTHETICS IN VOLUNTEER TOURISM |
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Institution: | 1. Ministry of Education, Research & Religious Affairs, Directorate of Secondary Education of Imathia, Dim. Moumoglou 1, 59132 Veria, Greece;2. Middlesex University London, Business School, Department of Marketing, Branding and Tourism, Williams Building, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT, United Kingdom;1. Department of Geography, National University Singapore, 1 Arts Link, Singapore 117570, Singapore;2. Department of Geography and Environment, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2424 Maile Way, Saunders Hall, 415, Honolulu, HI 96822, United States |
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Abstract: | In this paper I address the “politics of aesthetics” in volunteer tourism. By “aesthetics,” I mean two things. First, I adopt Jacques Ranciere’s notion of aesthetics as the structured way human sense is organized. I argue that volunteer tourism perpetuates an aesthetic structure that systematically depoliticizes the global economic inequality on which the experience is based. Second, drawing on recent scholarship in critical tourism studies as well as 16 months of ethnographic research in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I illustrate how volunteer tourists aestheticize the host community members’ poverty as authentic and cultural. This reframing contributes to the legitimization of volunteer tourism as a celebrated cultural practice that perpetuates the aestheticization rather than the politicization of poverty in the encounter. |
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Keywords: | politics of aesthetics cultural politics social movements neoliberalism volunteer tourism Thailand |
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