Gap year saviours - An analysis of the role of race in an advertisement for development volunteering

Abstract

The issues of race and ethnicity are taboo in the realm of development. By critically analysing a representation of race and ethnicity in an advertisement for an international development agency, this paper seeks to open new avenues of discussion to break this silence. The paper examines the reduction of the racial identity through the process of stereotyping, the commodification of vulnerable children from the devloping world through the hidden language of race and the construction of the development worker as a ‘white saviour’ through the depiction of volunteers as ‘rescuers’. The aim of this paper is not to simply dismiss the actions of development workers as inherently racist; rather it concludes that race and development are inextricably linked. A discussion of this relationship is necessary to break its taboo in development praxis.