Volume: 3  Number: 3  Page: 160–177

Volunteer Tourism: Postmodern Pilgrimage?

Pekka Mustonen Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Rehtorinpellonkatu 3, 20500 Turku, Finland

Volunteer tourism is very close to modern backpacking tourism but when the motive basis is concerned, it can be considered a clearly separate form of tourism. Thus new viewpoints must be utilised. In this study the discussion was expanded towards premodern tourism and postmodern theories were utilised. To strengthen the theoretical ideas, two example destinations in Indian Himalayas were selected. The rise of so-called alternative tourism is one aspect of postmodernity in tourism. Volunteer tourism belongs to the group but it also differs remarkably from the other members. These differences are connected here with traditional pilgrimage, which represents probably the oldest type of tourism. While pilgrims are searching for enlightenment by conducting pilgrimages to particular sites, volunteer tourists follow their altruistic motives and reach their aspiration level in sacred liminoid. Altruistic tourism will most likely grow in the future. In addition to this, traditional pilgrimage has also been changing. Contemporary pilgrimages include behaviour which has traditionally been typical to conventional tourism. Thus the convergence of traditional pilgrimage towards leisure tourism and the birth of volunteer tourism represents the blend of premodern and postmodern – a trend which was started by the help of modernity but finally occurred in postmodernity.

Keywords: India, postmodern, volunteer tourism, pilgrimage, liminality

© 2005 P. Mustonen

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