Tag: decolonial

A decolonial checklist for your decolonial online event. PART 1/2.

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Screen reader caption for blind or visually impaired people: A small river zig-zagging into the jungle and forming three increasingly big waterfalls as it comes towards a small, crystal clear pond. There is a small wooden bridge on the upper-left side of the photo, almost invisible, deep in the jungle. Research shows that even short interactions with natural scenery, including pictures and audio recordings can improve human mood and well being. And, oh we’ll need some, when talking colonial stuff! Photo by Rifqi Ramadhan on Pexels.com

Lately, the term “Decolonize” has finally been removed from the unwritten censorship lists by the Committee of White Tears or something. No longer hushed in outrage during classes, conferences and webinars, it is now the buzzing term being probably fed to ChatGPT by lecturers and various organizers so that is now buzzing all around. I should know, I’m in a Decolonize Think Tank [this page is under maintenance], trying to Decolonize International Voluntary Service [project description]! And since the EU is now “updating” its funding strategy to the Cold War and non-EU participants won’t be allowed in any longer (very decolonial) you can start by supporting the International Solidarity Fund of CCIVS (the Coordinating Committee of International Voluntary Service), the umbrella organization who open the discussion about the need for the International Voluntary Service movement to be more intentional, vocal and active about decolonial intentions, talks and practice. As usual, mention ≠ absolute endorsement.

Indeed, saying that an institution, project, exhibition or event are “Decolonial”, does not automatically make it decolonial. I know, shocker. And, sure, a checklist will absolutely solve the problem for good.

Bear with me with a little story. When I was about 18, I communicated to my parents that I had received a supportive ok go from our family doctor to go vegetarian. Me and Dr. Pinecone - the best rendering of the Roman dialect nickname we gave him – devised a one year transition plan starting with reducing meat and fish consumption to twice a week each. “That’s not even a thing – my Mother said – we already do that“. One week and one dutifully compiled checklist later, we knew that the actual amount was nine times cumulatively – because, yes, bacon and ragù are meat and tuna is fish too. So, yes, we are in therapy now and, yes, I like checklists: this is the second here and won’t be the last 😉

1 – TIME ZONES

Speakers, facilitators and participants are made aware of the schedule according to their own time zone from the moment they are invited and at all times, consistently, throughout communications.

Pro-tip, a.k.a. would you dare?
Have Euro-Americans speak, chair or facilitate at 10pm or later, for once.

2 – SPEAKERS, CHAIRS&FACILITATORS

These are the people that are put on the banner, at the center, on a chair, on a stage, on a full screen, or that are given the mic. Choose wisely, critically, “reparatively”, not quantitatively. “Best-selling”, “most published/established/famous”, “decades-long research holder” … often are synonyms of the pale-male-stale – oh my, PMS! – trinity. If you want to “ensure diversity” but still include the PMS – not ready for an all BIPOC, all-neuro-divergent, all-queer, all-women panel? Why? – ensure they have the elegance and sense of humor to take a damn joke about the true fact that they graduated the same year the first woman was ever admitted in their department.

Pro-tip, a.k.a. would you dare?
Have someone who completely challenges your comfortable and streamlined organizing. Give them unconditional trust and negotiation power, and pay them well.

3 – GENERAL PROMOTION AND VISUAL

In short: visibility and representation matter. This includes but is surely not limited to:

  • The order (first to last, center to margin, top to bottom) of the speakers on all promotional materials. Does it reproduce colonial hierarchies?
  • The wording of each speaker’s written bio, the way they are introduced before they speak, the way they are addressed during the discussion. Do they reproduce colonial tropes?
  • The speaking time, the amount of time each speakers is addressed, the speech support devices they are provided or accessible to them (slides, screen-sharing, video-sharing …), the content of their speech. Is it counter-balancing the exclusion, dispossession and abuse of colonial times?
  • The imagery produced before, during and after. Is it reproducing colonial imagery?

Pro-tip, a.k.a. would you dare?
Would you dare to use each decolonial event to collectively train or re-train, participants and organizers alike?

And speaking of training …

[Continue to PART 2/2]

DECOLONIZE.

AnitaVenanziLeave a comment

Screen reader caption for blind or visually impaired people: An unidentified body of water, it could be a broad river, a lake or the photo could have been taken from a boat approaching the shore. There is a line of hills visible at the horizon, and beautiful clouds are colored by the last rays of the sun that has disappeared already. Research shows that even short interactions with natural scenery, including pictures and audio recordings can improve human mood and well being. And, oh we’ll need some, when talking colonial stuff! Photo by InstaWalli on Pexels.com


One of the ongoing tasks of the Decolonize Think Tank [this page is under maintenance] I am lucky to be a member of, other than trying to Decolonize International Voluntary Service [project description], is to find quick, simple and accessible ways to talk about the century-long, complex and challenging colonial imperialism process. I’ll talk more about this and share ways to support this initiative, the EU is now “updating” its funding strategy to the Cold War and non-EU participants won’t be allowed in any longer – very decolonial. You can start by supporting the International Solidarity Fund of CCIVS (the Coordinating Committee of International Voluntary Service), the umbrella organization who open the discussion about the need for the International Voluntary Service movement to be more intentional, vocal and active about decolonial intentions, talks and practice. As usual, mention ≠ absolute endorsement.

In the past two years, the decolonial conversations was introduced and hosted in groups that systematically had participants who heard the word for the first time, participants that associated the call to decolonize with “decolonisation” (the Cold War program of European colonists formally leaving various African states territories and recognizing independence), and participants that mastered decolonial language, discourse and practice at various degrees – or thought they did, or taught hosts who thought they did 😉

This quote is the least challenged opening so far to these conversations – and is now part of a Decolonial Self-Assessment Tool’s first draft, that should see the light in a couple of months, so it serves as teaser:


[…] a lot of the damage done by imperial colonialism has to do with the creation and (often violent) imposition of a power structure, i.e. a hierarchy of places and people. Some places and people were placed at the bottom of the hierarchy and pictured as lacking power, resources, knowledge, initiative and value; others were put at the top and called powerful, wealthy and valuable. This hierarchy is still visible in today’s world system, […]. Those descending from men-made, wealth-seeking, lighter skinned empires and their allies also tend to dominate the organization and progress of non-decolonized volunteering programs, resulting in a similar hierarchy of empowerment among volunteering organizers and participants.

The logic of the following questions is to keep in mind this hierarchy, and seeing as many chances as possible to turn this hierarchy upside down, in a collective effort to repair and compensate for the damage done.





A brief history of voluntourism.

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Screen-reader caption for blind or visually impaired people: a Eurocentric world map showing the colonial sea routes between continents. Photo credits: James Chesire & Valentina D’Efilippo, for data referenches see jcheshire.com.

This brief history of volunteerism took form thanks to a panel discussion taking place during 2022’s Exchange Platform Meeting of Service Civil International (SCI), and became a paragraph of my own PhD dissertation, which is available on request. This version has been edited for length and clarity. You can support and show your gratitude to Service Civil International (SCI) here, and specifically to SCI Belgium here for organizing and holding space so that this knowledge could be co-created – mention does not equate absolute endorsement.

Voluntourism came out when the tourism industry merged with international volunteering for development.

Back in the 90s, when international travel became more affordable and mainstream, a debate started around North-to-South tourism. Two factions emerged: on the one hand, there was praise for this new mass-industry’s potential to channel economic growth, environmental and cultural conservation, infrastructural improvement, cultural exchange and political stability from the “North” to the “South”. On the other hand, there was concern and criticism for yet another round of interaction between these two historical entities happening in hierarchical, unequal and commodified terms – with additional prospects of environmental and cultural pollution. Such criticism made clients hesitant enough to provoke the tourist industry’s reaction: i.e. rebranding its offer as supposedly alternative or conscious tourism.

In the early 2000s, however, criticism came to target alternative tourism as well, recognizing its manipulative attempt to regain buyers’ trust. Again, potential clients themselves started reconsidering their participation in yet another round of global South exploitation at the hands of Northerners. This round’s peculiarity was that, rather than trading on raw and precious materials including bodies and workforce as in colonial times, it trafficked good conscience to justify inaction. Until then, Northerners could avoid concrete anti-imperialist action by representing themselves in anti-conquest terms, as “innocent” and “well-meaning” life-long cosmopolitan aid workers. The alternative tourism industry made the same exoneration achievable short term for everyone, in the span of a conveniently packaged holiday.

The debate around voluntourism followed the very same progression, in parallel. The phenomenon was first defined in positive terms, for example by Wearing in 2001 (p. 1):

[…] volunteer in an organized way to undertake holidays that might involve aiding or alleviating the material poverty of some groups in society, the restoration of certain environments, or research into aspects of society or environment.

Empirical data was soon collected to support the claim that voluntourism experiences could predict volunteers’ involvement in social movement activism.
In the 2010s, two factions emerged again: respectively reviewing success stories to further frame the phenomenon as a force for good vs. highlighting the same-old nature of non-professional voluntourism.

Criticism grew in popularity across various disciplines and in popular culture in the past few years, and potential clients started shunning and boycotting voluntourism. But we have to be watchful of the industry’s current opportunistic rebranding: already appropriating decolonial, anti-racist and indigenous and trans-feminist slogans while serving the same neocolonial and neoliberal soup.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andriotis, Konstantinos. “Options in tourism development: Conscious versus conventional tourism.” Anatolia 13, no. 1 (2002): 73-85.

Dadpour, Rana, and Stephen Wearing. “Volunteer tourism agencies as intermediaries; communities’ empowerment through the production of new knowledge.” In CAUTHE 2013: Tourism and Global Change: On the Edge of Something Big: On the Edge of Something Big, pp. 131-134. Christchurch, NZ: Lincoln University, 2013.

Guttentag, Daniel A. “The possible negative impacts of volunteer tourism.” International journal of tourism research 11, no. 6 (2009): 537-551.

Mahrouse, Gada. “Feel-good tourism: An ethical option for socially-conscious Westerners?.” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 10, no. 3 (2011): 372-391.

McGehee, Nancy Gard, and Carla Almeida Santos. “Social change, discourse and volunteer tourism.” Annals of tourism research 32, no. 3 (2005): 760-779.

Palacios, Carlos M. “Volunteer tourism, development and education in a postcolonial world: Conceiving global connections beyond aid.” Journal of sustainable tourism 18, no. 7 (2010): 861-878.

Raymond, Eliza. “Make a difference!’the role of sending organizations in volunteer tourism.” Journeys of discovery in volunteer tourism: International case study perspectives (2008): 48-60.

Raymond, Eliza Marguerite, and C. Michael Hall. “The development of cross-cultural (mis) understanding through volunteer tourism.” Journal of sustainable tourism 16, no. 5 (2008): 530-543.

Simpson, Kate. “‘Doing development’: The gap year, volunteer‐tourists and a popular practice of development.” Journal of International Development: The Journal of the Development Studies Association 16, no. 5 (2004): 681-692.

Wearing, Stephen, ed. Volunteer tourism: Experiences that make a difference. Cabi Publishing, 2001.

Wearing, Stephen, and Nancy Gard McGehee. “Volunteer tourism: A review.” Tourism management 38 (2013): 120-130.