Brokering aid through tourism: The contradictory roles of volunteer coordinators in Cusco, Peru

Abstract

This article considers the crucial role played by local volunteer tourism coordinators in Cusco, Peru. Previous studies tend to neglect this population, but as gatekeepers facilitating interactions between international sending agencies, volunteer tourists, and the aid communities they serve, coordinators are uniquely positioned to comment on multiple facets of the industry. I argue that their continuous juggling of contradictory goals—the satisfaction of their tourist clients, the economic viability of their employers’ placement businesses, the charitable aims of the project beneficiaries receiving their volunteers—points to larger tensions between commercial and philanthropic aims. In analyzing the practices and narratives of five coordinators, I draw attention to this particular group of actors’ struggles to reconcile the same moral and applied dilemmas of ‘making a difference,’ profit, representation, and sense of self and purpose that other sector participants experience.