Volunteer work as a neo-colonial practice: Racism in transnational education

Abstract In our ethnographic study we were focusing on constructions of difference concerning different categories of difference such as race and gender, but also age, class, etc. Those categories of difference are constructed simultaneously in social processes and they are also reproduced in interactions in volunteer work abroad, which is currently booming among young people. We refer to powerful practices of self-ascription and consider this critically in the case of volunteer work. We considered the interactions between the white volunteers and the local people by interacting with them, and thus we identified an imbalance of power and dominance, for example, in educational practices. Categorizations of difference concerning race were dominant and they influenced all interactions decisively. In addition, they arranged gender constructions along the characteristics of color. We defined this fact as a perpetuation of colonial practices which unconsciously have an effect. These attributions are internalized and reproduced in interaction processes.