Towards a sustainable change in the field of organised, international volunteering: An exploratory study of experiences and reflections from the Danish field of organised, international volunteering: An exploratory study of experiences and reflections from the Danish field of organised, international volunteering

Jensen, Anna Odds ; Jørgensen, Anja Vind

4. term

Global Refugee Studies, Master

2021

2021-04-19

95 pages

This study explores the experiences and learning processes within the Danish field of organised, international volunteering. The study takes its empirical departure in two Danish international volunteer programmes and a Danish association working for sustainable change in the market for international volunteering. The organisations’ practice, experiences and changes of practice empirically explored in this study is linked to an increasing criticism towards the practice and phenomenon of international volunteering, as well as a noticeable increasing global interest in (social) sustainability. The study is built upon a theoretical framework that combines critical perspectives from post-development theory with experiential learning theory. The former has been applied to explore the power structures embedded in the field of international volunteering. The latter has been applied as an analytical tool to explore how experience and knowledge relates to the organisations’ change of practice. This analysis further unfolds some of the organisations’ challenges, being travel agencies in a competitive market driven by the demands and requests of ‘customers’, while the organisations simultaneously have to assure their credibility as humanitarian organisations. The particular combination of theory has contributed to an analytical debate of structure and agency, power and knowledge.

This study explores the experiences and learning processes within the Danish field of organised, international volunteering. The study takes its empirical departure in two Danish international volunteer programmes and a Danish association working for sustainable change in the market for international volunteering. The organisations’ practice, experiences and changes of practice empirically explored in this study is linked to an increasing criticism towards the practice and phenomenon of international volunteering, as well as a noticeable increasing global interest in (social) sustainability. The study is built upon a theoretical framework that combines critical perspectives from post-development theory with experiential learning theory. The former has been applied to explore the power structures embedded in the field of international volunteering. The latter has been applied as an analytical tool to explore how experience and knowledge relates to the organisations’ change of practice. This analysis further unfolds some of the organisations’ challenges, being travel agencies in a competitive market driven by the demands and requests of ‘customers’, while the organisations simultaneously have to assure their credibility as humanitarian organisations. The particular combination of theory has contributed to an analytical debate of structure and agency, power and knowledge.

International volunteering ; organisations’ change of practice ; social sustainability ; post-development ; experiential learning ; structure ; agency ; power ; knowledge

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