Becoming German Abroad - How Volunteer Tourism Shapes National Identity
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2025-07-15
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en
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Volunteer tourism is growing in popularity and is increasingly discussed in academic research. The practice is known to benefit the volunteers as it offers them room for personal development. However, scholarly work has not yet examined how national identity is shaped, influenced, and questioned in that context. Thus, based on travel narratives of volunteers participating in the German government-funded weltwärts program, this paper critically analyzes how Germanness emerges as a discursive position. Focusing on the volunteers' self-described behavior, their writing styles, narratives of the host culture, the emotional undertone, shared visual content, and their reflection on their identity, this research shows how these aspects construct one's identification with one’s nation of origin. It highlights that volunteering abroad offers unique moments to experience what it means to be German and how individual characteristics and global power dynamics shape Germanness. The setting stimulates a reinforcement, contestation, and reflection on national identity, drawing attention to aspects attributed to Germanness that would otherwise remain obscured at home. These experiences reveal that national identity is not static but fluid, being continuously negotiated and performed. The volunteers’ different reflections and stories highlight how identities are multilayered, interacting with each other. Ultimately, this research demonstrates how volunteer tourism can reproduce underlying postcolonial power dynamics, positioning the volunteer of moral superiority while at the same time engaging the tourists in critical reflection on their behavior and position, fostering personal growth.
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