Serving the Street: Volunteering as charity, justice, and poverty tourism

Volunteering is typically thought of as an act of altruism; volunteers help people without expectation of reward. Yet, there are power dynamics embedded in volunteer-service recipient relationships, and this is especially true when volunteers are operating from privileged positions. Through an ethnography of six grassroots homeless service organizations in St. Louis, Missouri, this book calls attention to the relationship between race, class, urban space, and volunteerism. Although volunteers were well-intentioned and provided vital, life-saving services, Serving the Street argues that many of these same volunteer groups helped to reproduce racialized stigma and stereotypes about poverty, homelessness, and marginal urban space through touristic volunteer practices grounded in varying racial ideologies. If the desire is to make our communities more inclusive and equitable, this book ultimately suggests a need for greater reflexivity, even among well-intentioned, social-justice oriented volunteers.

Serving the Street: Volunteering as charity, justice, and poverty tourism Book