The jury of the ATLAS Prize for Bachelor and Master thesis on leisure and tourism have highly commended Sofia Rastelli, rewarding her with a second prize on her Bachelor thesis "The Hero, the Adventurer and the Advocate volunteers. A visual analysis of volunteer tourists’ identities on Instagram".Â
In her thesis, Sofia studies photographic practices related to volunteer tourism on Instagram. Findings show that volunteers perform the identities of the hero, the adventurer and the advocate, portraying different approaches on how to live the volunteer experience and interact with the local ‘other’. Again, the jury found this a very well written thesis about an interesting and topical subject. The thesis has a strong theoretical underpinning based on a sound literature review and lots of insightful comments and examples of critical thinking. It makes use of an innovative methodology but with some ethical issues implicit in it. However, related societal implications are not really addressed in the thesis.
Sofia Rastelli's thesis was executed under the supervision of Apoorva Nanjangud, PhD candidate at ESHCC, part of the department of Arts and Culture Studies.
With this prize, Sofia wins a certificate in PDF, an invitation to present the thesis during the ATLAS annual conference and a free ATLAS student membership for one year. The prize winners will be honored during the ATLAS annual conference in September 2021, which will be held online.
More information about the ATLAS Prize for Bachelor and Master thesis on leisure and tourism can be found on the ATLAS website.