Slum tourism

Slum tourism in Five Points, Manhattan in 1885
Bed and breakfast inside a South African township

Slum tourism, or ghetto tourism is a type of tourism that involves visiting impoverished areas. Originally focused on the slums of London and Manhattan in the 19th century, slum tourism is now becoming increasingly prominent in many places, including South Africa, India, Brazil, Kenya, Indonesia, Detroit, and others.[1][2][3]

History

The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first use of the word slumming to 1884. In London, people visited slum neighborhoods such as Whitechapel or Shoreditch in order to observe life in this situation. By 1884 wealthier people in New York City began to visit the Bowery and the Five Points area of the Lower East Side, neighborhoods of poor immigrants, to see "how the other half lives".[4]

In the 1980s in South Africa, black residents organized township tours to educate the whites in local governments on how the black population lived. Such tours attracted international tourists, who wanted to learn more about apartheid.[5]

In the mid-1990s, international tours began to be organized with destinations in the most disadvantaged areas of developing nations, often known as slums. They have grown in popularity, and are often run and advertised by professional companies. In Cape Town, South Africa, for example, upwards of 300,000 tourists visit the city each year to view the slums.[6]

Prior to the release of Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, Mumbai was a slum tourist destination.[1] The concept of slum tourism has recently started to gain more attention from media and academia alike. In December 2010 the first international conference on slum tourism was held in Bristol.[7] A social network of people working in or with slum tourism has been set up.[8]

Locations

Slum tourism is mainly performed in urban areas of developing countries, most often named after the type of areas that are visited:

Ghetto tourism focuses on slums known as ghettoes, especially in developed countries. Ghetto tourism was first studied in 2005 by Michael Stephens in the cultural-criticism journal, PopMatters. Ghetto tourism includes all forms of entertainment — gangsta rap, video games, movies, TV, and other forms that allow consumers to traffic in the inner city without leaving home.[13][14] As Stevens says, "digital media achieves more detailed simulations of reality. The quest for thrills mutates into a desire, not just to see bigger and better explosions, but to cross class and racial boundaries and experience other lifestyles." International tourists to New York City in the 1980s led to a successful tourism boom in Harlem. By 2002, Philadelphia began offering tours of blighted inner-city neighborhoods. After Hurricane Katrina, tours were offered in flood-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward, a notoriously violent and poor section of New Orleans.[13] Ghetto or "urban tourism" often encompasses travel to destinations made famous by direct or indirect mention by popular artists. Travel to certain parts of Detroit that include 8 Mile Road, known for the role the travel route played in the similarly titled 8 Mile film starring Eminem, or to Crenshaw Boulevard in South Central Los Angeles, a metropolitan area that inspired an entire generation of pioneering musical influence, could potentially be included as urban tourism. The Jane-Finch area of Toronto, Canada is gaining notoriety as another area in transition.

Charleroi, in Belgium, is another example of this phenomenon in a developed country.[15]

Motivations

Signed street graffiti awaits urban tourists in Montreal.

A 2010 study by the University of Pennsylvania showed that tourists in Mumbai's Dharavi slum were motivated primarily by curiosity, as opposed to several competing push factors such as social comparison, entertainment, education, or self-actualization. In addition, the study found that most slum residents were ambivalent about the tours, while the majority of tourists reported positive feelings during the tour, with interest and intrigue as the most commonly cited feelings.[1] Many tourists often come to the slums to put their life in perspective.[1]

Artists have been featured in The Source magazine who travel to different urban settings to adapt and learn new graffiti styles.

Criticism

Slum tourism has been the subject of much controversy. Both critiques and defenses of the practice have been made in the editorial pages of prominent newspapers, such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, London Times, and others. A primary accusation that the advocates against slum tourism make is that it "turns poverty into entertainment, something that can be momentarily experienced and then escaped from." Kennedy Odede, a Kenyan, wrote in the New York Times Op-Ed section, "They get photos; we lose a piece of our dignity."[16] Similar critics call the tours voyeuristic and exploitative.[17] Slum tourism critics have also cited the fact that Christmas and Valentine's Day as common times for slum tourism further supporting the belief that Westerners often visit slums just to "feel better about themselves" during those holidays when most people are with families and significant others.[18]

The tours provide employment and income for tour guides from the slums, an opportunity for craft-workers to sell souvenirs, and may invest back in the community with profit that is earned.[17] As the debate over the ethics of slum tourism continues, studies are being done. Forums for discussion are being created to further the dialogue and provide reliable information.[19]

In 2013 controversy arose when a company called "Real Bronx Tours" was discovered offering tours of The Bronx advertized as "a ride through a real New York City 'ghetto'...[the borough] was notorious for drugs, gangs, crime and murders." Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito condemned the tours stating "Using the Bronx to sell a so-called 'ghetto' experience to tourists is completely unacceptable and the highest insult to the communities we represent." The tours were soon discontinued.[20]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Slum Tourism: A Trip into the Controversy". May 15, 2010. Retrieved 2011-07-25.
  2. ↑ "Slumming In This Town. A Fashionable London Mania Reaches New-York. Slumming Parties To Be The Rage This Winter. Good Districts To Visit. Mrs. Langtry As A Slummer". New York Times. September 14, 1884. Retrieved 2010-12-08. 'Slumming', the latest fashionable idiosyncrasy in London -- i.e., the visiting of the slums of the great city by parties of ladies and gentlemen for sightseeing -- is mildly practiced here by our foreign visitors by a tour of the Bowery, winding up with a visit to an opium joint or Harry Hill's. ...
  3. ↑ ""Slow Roll Detroit"".
  4. ↑ Marc Saint-Upéry (October 21, 2010). "Left at the Crossroads: Ogling the poor". RIA Novosti. Retrieved 2010-12-08. The word 'slumming' was first registered by the Oxford Dictionary in 1884, coinciding with a rising Victorian preoccupation that mixed philanthropy, social paranoia and voyeuristic titillation. Respectable middle-class Londoners would visit seedy neighborhoods such as Whitechapel or Shoreditch, while wealthy New Yorkers roamed the Bowery and the Lower East Side to see "how the other half lives". By the turn of the century, the tourist practice had begun to decline
  5. ↑ Dondolo, L., 2002. The Construction of Public History and Tourism Destinations in Cape Town's Townships: A Study of Routes, Sites and Heritage, Cape Town: University of the Western Cape
  6. ↑ Manfred Rolfes, Poverty tourism: theoretical reflections and empirical findings regarding an extraordinary form of tourism, in GeoJournal, (Springer Science and Business Media, 26 September 2009), 421.
  7. ↑ "Destination Slum". 2014-05-16. Retrieved 2014-06-23.
  8. ↑ Slumtourism.net – Network for people working in or with slum tourism
  9. ↑ ""Different from what visitors expect", Interview with Oberdan Basilio Chagas who guides visitors through his favela. In: D+C Vol.42.2015:4".
  10. 1 2 "Slum tourism: Patronising or social enlightenment? - BBC News". BBC News. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
  11. ↑ "Jakarta Hidden Tours". Realjakarta.blogspot.com. 2004-02-27. Retrieved 2014-06-23.
  12. ↑ Amelia Gentleman. ""Slum tours: a day trip too far? – The Observer, Sunday 7 May 2006". Guardian. Retrieved 2014-06-23.
  13. 1 2 "Citypaper online". Retrieved 2007-11-10.
  14. ↑ "XXL — Ghetto tourism". Retrieved 2007-11-10.
  15. ↑ "Wallonia: Eight things you didn't know about Belgium's French-speaking region". BBC News. October 24, 2016. Retrieved October 24, 2016.
  16. ↑ Slumdog Tourism, Kennedy Odede, New York Times, August 9, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10odede.html, accessed 12/6/2011.
  17. 1 2 Eric Weiner, Slum Visits: Tourism or Voyeurism?, New York Times, March 9, 2008, http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/travel/09heads.html?pagewanted=all, accessed 12/6/2011.
  18. ↑ Hanrahan, Mark (May 8, 2013). "Your Next Vacation Destination: A Slum?". Huffington Post.
  19. ↑ See http://slumtourism.net/about and University of the West of England. "Does slum tourism make us better people?", ScienceDaily, 28 Jan. 2010. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.
  20. ↑ 'Ghetto' tours of Bronx ended after outrage
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