Culture and Social Practice Volunteer Tourism Encounters

An Indigenous community in Ecuador's Amazon engages with voluntourism to advance its own motives and sustain a self-determined way of life. Volunteer tourism is a global trend in which travellers engage in voluntary work, often in social, environmental, or charitable projects. Stefanie Schien explores the lived experiences of a Shuar community in the Ecuadorian Amazon that hosts volunteer tourists. She challenges the view of locals as passive aid recipients and highlights how they actively navigate, negotiate, and leverage voluntourism to pursue their own strategies and motives. By emphasizing the perspectives and agency of the host community, this thought-provoking study complicates our understanding of voluntourism and shows that what is at stake for the Shuar in this global exchange is the continuation of their self-determined way of life.