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‘Getting in Touch with your Inner Angelina’: celebrity humanitarianism and the cultural politics of gendered generosity in volunteer tourism

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  • Mary Mostafanezhad

Abstract

Reporting on the growth of volunteer tourism, a recent Time magazine article explains, ‘Getting in touch with your inner Angelina Jolie is easier than it used to be!’. In myriad ways celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Madonna have made international volunteering sexy. These women and their adopted children from the so-called ‘Third World’ have come to symbolise popular humanitarianism in the West. This paper addresses the cultural politics of female celebrity humanitarianism and the corollary implications of this practice for 20-something female volunteer tourists in northern Thailand. Based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that the cultural politics of gendered generosity in these encounters overshadows the institutional and historical relationships on which the experience is based and that, in a neoliberal sleight of hand, the political is displaced by the individual with celebrity sheen.

Suggested Citation

  • Mary Mostafanezhad, 2013. "‘Getting in Touch with your Inner Angelina’: celebrity humanitarianism and the cultural politics of gendered generosity in volunteer tourism," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 485-499.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:34:y:2013:i:3:p:485-499
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2013.785343
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    Cited by:

    1. Woods, Orlando & Shee, Siew Ying, 2021. ""Doing it for the 'gram"? The representational politics of popular humanitarianism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    2. Olwig, Mette Fog, 2021. "Sustainability superheroes? For-profit narratives of “doing good” in the era of the SDGs," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    3. Rickly, Jillian M. & Clouser, Rebecca, 2019. "Spectacle and adventure philanthropy," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 158-160.
    4. Henry, Jacob, 2019. "The unspeakable whiteness of volunteer tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 326-327.
    5. Virginia Navajas-Romero & Lorena Caridad y López del Río & Nuria Ceular-Villamandos, 2020. "Analysis of Wellbeing in Nongovernmental Organizations’ Workplace in a Developed Area Context," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-21, August.
    6. Koleth, Maria, 2014. "Crises of complicity," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 272-274.

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