ABSTRACT
This chapter considers volunteer tourists as one of the expressions of citizen humanitarianism conceiving their “civil pilgrimage” to the so-called life jacket graveyard in Lesvos (Greece) as a fulcrum in the contribution to the politicization of citizen-humanitarian engagement. Lesvos – and in particular the life jacket graveyard – is nowadays an emblematic place of the “refugee crisis”. The growth of structured grass-root organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) led to the emergence of volunteer tourism. People spend their holidays volunteering in Lesvos not only seeking to help, but to increase their awareness also through visiting the spaces exceeding those of the humanitarian intervention. In this context some places on the island became particularly symbolic: among them the best-known site is the life jacket graveyard. Drawing on ethnographic research it was possible to identify a relation between the phenomenon of volunteer tourism and memorial tourism. The contribution will look at the motives that bring volunteers to look for such memorial sites, at the socially constructed meanings that such places carry and at how this relates to the role of humanitarian citizen.
