"Itching to make an impact": constructing the mobile Singaporean voluntourist in Instagram travel narratives. Issue 3 (27th May 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pak, Vincent; Hiramoto, Mie
• Is Part Of: Social semiotics. Volume 32:Issue 3(2022)
• Page Start: 332
• Page End: 354
• Publication Date: 2022-05-27
• Subjects: Youth volunteer -- tourism -- Instagram -- corpus analysis -- globalization -- Singapore; Semiotics -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Functionalism (Linguistics) -- Periodicals; Critical theory -- Periodicals; 302.2
• DOI: 10.1080/10350330.2020.1766263
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1035-0330

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This study investigates voluntourism activity directed by a local university in Singapore. The phenomenological experience of participating in voluntourism is captured in the form of reflective Instagram posts where voluntourists often report attaining a sense of personal growth and development, centering their experiences at the expense of their underprivileged counterparts. By conducting a text and visual analysis of their Instagram posts, we venture that the participants' travel narratives evince a collaborative effort between their transnational mobilities and the subsequent post-trip reflections to linguistically construct a global selfhood in relation to the underprivileged subject. Such self-presentations are deemed to be culturally valuable, and very much influenced by and in congruence with the Singapore government's globalization project.