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The white savior complex is an institutional social relation that entails self-serving, condescending, and often institutionalized actions by "privileged" people that aim to provide help to the underprivileged, including those from less powerful nations and people of color in developing nations. The psychological and institutional complex applies to a wide range of domains, spanning from media representation, education, foreign policies, volunteer tourism, to the study abroad, and it justifies the "saving" actions through the good intention to change the status quo of those who are being helped.
At an individual level, the white savior complex is a mentality that encourages individuals to act as saviors of those incapable of self-autonomy. However, the white savior complex is more than the intuitive psychological complex that people often endorse. When understanding individual mentalities and actions in the bigger picture, the white savior complex refers to an institutional social relation made up of individual psychological mentalities. In this broader sense, the phrase endorses the definition of the concept as a confluence of practices, processes, and institutions that reify historical inequities to ultimately validate white privilege.1 The individual psychological experiences make up the larger complex system that involves many institutions, leading to dire consequences, including inequality and a limitation of those who are being helped. Therefore, the white savior complex is both a psychological and institutional complex.
In a discussion of the white savior complex as an institutional social relation, it is important to identify the three key elements of the complex: the white savior, a condescending "saving" action, and nonwhite people who are being "saved." These three elements make clear the "social" part of the definition of the white savior complex as an "institutional social relation"-and under the social relation, the two social groups (the saviors and the saved) are connected through "saving" actions.
The white saviors are the subjects of the white savior complex who intend to better the situations in a developing country or a less privileged population, which they identify as in need of saving. However, "whiteness" is not an accusation of all white people who offer help to nonwhites, and nonwhites from developed nations can also partake in the white savior complex. The use of "white" in the naming and discussion of the white savior...