GAP YEAR VOLUNTEER TOURISM
Myths of Global Citizenship?
The valorisation of cross-cultural understanding and promotion of an ethic of global
citizenship are at the forefront of the recent development and proliferation of international
‘gap year’ travel programs and policies. Governments and industry alike promote
gap year travel uncritically as a guaranteed pathway to the development of inclusive ideologies
associated with global citizenship. In this paper we examine how the neoliberalist context in
which gap year travel programs have proliferated does little to promote tolerance. We then
consider the recent growth of ‘volunteer tourism’ as an alternative gap year youth travel experience
and explore how the implied resistance to self-serving neoliberalist values that it
engenders can become coopted by neoliberalism. Keywords: global citizenship, neoliberalism,
gap year travel, volunteer tourism