Who are we responsible to? Locals' tales of volunteer tourism
Who are we responsible to? Locals' tales of volunteer tourism
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我们对谁负责？
DOI：
10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.08.007
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发表时间：
2010
期刊：
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Harng Luh Sin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Harng Luh Sin
现有的研究往往表明，志愿旅游具有强烈的“社会”、“正义”和“扶贫”旅游色彩，有能力给东道国的当地社区带来积极影响。例如，佩林倡导志愿旅游“作为一种可持续发展的发展战略，以自然资源质量、当地人和游客都从旅游活动中受益为中心”（佩林，2001：第12页）。事实上，志愿旅游的基本假设表明，这是一种允许在东道国社区赋予当地人权力的旅游形式，与传统的旅游模式相比，志愿旅游允许东道国和游客之间在更长的时间和更亲密的接触形式中发展文化互动和理解。这与志愿者项目非常直接和切实的成果一起，似乎建立了一个平台，当地人和游客都有能力积极地协商他们的身份和彼此的关系。然而，尽管对志愿旅游的积极价值有这些根深蒂固的假设，但很少有实证研究对实地情况进行评估。现有的文献主要集中在志愿者旅游上，很少有作品直接涉及东道国社区的观点。这就给志愿旅游所假定的好处是否真的实现带来了很大的不确定性。本文采用地理学的方法，首先回顾了关于关怀和责任地理学的现有讨论，以及它与负责任旅游（志愿旅游经常被视为其中的一部分）的文献的交集。本文中重新提出的意见是基于对14位柬埔寨受访者的采访（包括当地柬埔寨人，非政府组织（NGO）和以前在柬埔寨接待过志愿者游客的传教士）。因此，本文从东道主社区的角度探讨了志愿者旅游的积极和消极观点，并努力对有关东道主社区在旅游发展中的观点的有限文献进行平衡的讨论。
Existing studies have often suggested that volunteer tourism, with strong overtones of “social”, “justice” and “pro-poor” tourism, has the capacity to bring about positive impacts to local communities in host destinations. Wearing, for example, advocates volunteer tourism “as a development strategy leading to sustainable development and centering the convergence of natural resource qualities, locals and the visitors that all benefit from tourism activity” (Wearing, 2001: p. 12). Indeed, underlying assumptions in volunteer tourism suggest that it is a form of tourism that allows the empowering of locals in host-communities, and when compared to conventional modes of tourism, volunteer tourism allows cultural interaction and understanding to be developed between hosts and tourists in the longer period and more intimate form of contact. This, together with very direct and tangible outcomes of volunteer projects, appears to put in place a platform where locals and tourists both have the power to actively negotiate their identities and relations with each other. However, despite these deep-seated assumptions about the positive value in volunteer tourism, little empirical research has been conducted to assess the situation on the ground. Existing literature is largely centered on the volunteer tourist, with little works directly regarding the perspectives of host-communities. This places much uncertainty on whether the assumed benefits of volunteer tourism are indeed realized. Adopting a geographical approach, this paper begins with a review of existing discussions on the geographies of care and responsibility, and its intersections with literature on responsible tourism (of which volunteer tourism is often seen to be a part of). Opinions re-presented in this paper are based on interviews with 14 respondents in Cambodia (including local Cambodians, non-government organizations’ (NGO) and missionary workers that have previously hosted volunteer tourists in Cambodia. This paper thus explores both positive and negative opinions of volunteer tourism from the perspective of host-communities, and endeavors to contribute a balanced discussion to the limited literature regarding host-communities’ perspectives in tourism development.