| Cote: | 877 |
| Auteur: | JORIS Marlène |
| Année: | Septembre 2013 |
| Titre: | Volunteers' representations in the politicised cross-cultural encounter in eco-volunteer tourism |
| Sous la direction de: | Prof. René Véron |
| Type: | Mémoire de master en géographie |
| Pages: | 73 |
| Complément: | 17 pages d'annexes paginées |
| Remarques: | Ce document est exclu de la consultation et du prêt |
| Mots-clés: | Volunteer tourism / sustainability / North-South power relationship / imperialism / cross-cultural encounter / neoliberalism / representations / Thailand |
| Résumé: | Volunteer tourism is promoted as creating meaningful cross-cultural encounter by contributing to greater understanding between cultures. This outcome, as laudable as it is, is however hindered through the politicised nature of the encounter. Indeed, North-South uneven power relationships are involved in this alleged sustainable form of tourism and volunteers are sometimes accused of promoting modernisation and being neo-colonialists. The aim of this master thesis is to examine the unexplored uneven power relationships that are involved in an eco-volunteer project in Southern Thailand that aims at protecting the natural environment. To do so, I investigate the cross-cultural encounter as well as volunteers’ representations of Thai and of environmental problems. Participant observation and open-ended questionnaire survey were used as the main methods. The analysis demonstrates that volunteers convey imperialist representations of their role and to a certain extent, modernisation vision of Thailand’s environmental management. The depoliticised discourse legitimating volunteers’ intervention serves as a support to the reproduction of western imperialism. But the analysis also showed that volunteers have a genuine interest in environmental conservation and a real desire to get to know the local culture. In order to counter the negative outcomes, a set of recommendations is suggested. |