A future face of slum tourism?

General, Opinion piece, Slum tourism in the media, , , , ,

Yesterday evening was the viewing of the first episode of “Famous and Rich in The Slums“, a BBC reality television programme for British charity Comic Relief in which 4 celebrities go and live in the slums of Kibera for one week. Rather than merely visiting the celebrities are really “slumming it”. They get an initial £1.60 and have to survive for the next week by working together with local people for local wages, whilst staying overnight in one of the shanties. It is an interesting idea and the show Rich and Famous in the Slumsseems to get fairly positive reviews.

Watching the programme made me wonder whether such total immersion could become a new form of slum tourism for tourists that want to go beyond the normal tours or overnight stays. Notwithstanding ethical as well as health and safety issues, it could provide tourists with a desired more “authentic” experience and break down some of the barriers between local people and tourists.

On the other hand, one has to wonder whether tourists would actually want such an immersed experience. The television show tries to bring across the harshness of life in Kiberia and this may certainly be more than what tourists would like to enjoy during their holidays. In the townships of South Africa overnight stays that allow for more social interaction with local people than the mainstream township tours, receive relatively few visitors.  I would expect the numbers for a total immersion experience to be even far less.

It would appear that the majority of people that visit slums prefer the lack of time and interaction. This makes it easier to distance themselves from the reality around them; observing the other and talking about local life with a tour guide rather than engaging with local people more directly? Nevertheless with slum tourism slowly developing around the world, who can say that such total immersion tours would never arrive?

The show can be watched back on iPlayer until 17 March and the second episode will be aired Thursday 10 March 9 pm on BBC1.

Update: Having watched both episodes now, the series does leave some sort of a bad aftertaste. Particularly the second episode takes a very negative stance upon life in Kibera and does little to show the entrepreneurial and positive aspects of life in this area. This is a shame as it makes the show come across somewhat voyeuristic in my perspective.

“Women are heroes” – documentary on life in slums

General, Slum tourism in the media, , , ,

I recently found this link regarding a film documentary called “Women are Heroes” made by French street photographer JR. It portraits women and their daily issue in among others Kibera and Rio de Janeiro as well as showing massive photos of women in these areas as a form of art. Although I have not seen the documentary, the trailer is intriguing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvcKq4HcRAM

As far as I know the documentary will only be shown in a limited number of places, but it certainly seems very interesting, particularly for those interested in the representation of slums in popular culture and the potential influence on tourism.

Locations of Slum Tourism

General

Slum Tourism offerings have increased rapidly in recent times. Whereas at the start of the century the vast majority of “slumming” took place in South Africa and Brazil, nowadays different forms of slum tourism can be found all around the world.

The Slum Tourism Network would like to get some idea of the places where slum tourism is exercised and for that we need your help. The plan is to have a set page on slumtourism.net where people can see the different places where slum tourism is taking place. If you have been working in or with slum tourism, or know of an area where this is happening, please let us know!

Exploring the local social impacts of tourism

Academic publication, , , , , , , , ,

Although still in its infancy, an increasing amount of work is done on the ethical dimensions of slum tourism as well as the way it is experienced by tourists. An aspect of slum tourism that has received much less attention  is the perception local host communities to tourism. However,  it would seem that we are missing a vital part of the puzzle with regards to slum tourism if we do not look at local resident’s perspectives.Thesis front

A member of the slum tourism network, Rita Duarte, recently finished her MSc thesis on this very subject for the Favelas in Brazil. Interestingly, she did not only look at the most popular tourist favela (Rocinha), but also at the lesser known Pereira da Silva. In her exploratory study, she uses a transmodern perspective and finds that residents on the whole have a positive attitude towards tourists. They view it as an opportunity to be seen in a more positive light than is normally portrayed in media. They are critical critical however, on the ways in which tourism is performed. Particularly in Rocinha imbalanced power relations between external and internal actors could be observed. Duarte argues that local acceptance and control over the development of tourist activities is necessary to improve the social representation of favela residents.

The thesis is an interesting read and sheds further light upon the complexity of favela tourism and the perspective of local residents. With this in mind, it would have been interesting to see more about conflicting interests and ideas witin the communities and between local community members, particularly in Pereira da Silva. However, as Duarte rightfully says the time and scope of a thesis is limited and there will inevitably be gaps when doing exploratory research.

Duarte, R. (2010) Exploring the Social Impacts of Favela Tourism: An insight into the residents’ view. MSc. Wageningen, Wageningen University.

The thesis can be downloaded from Wageningen university website. However, the link does not always seem to work, so you can also download it from Slumtourism.net directly. If you have an interesting document, thesis or report regarding slum tourism, please contact us so we can share it on the Slum Tourism Network.


Call for papers: London Debates 2011

Call for Papers, , ,

As mentioned in the last post, the School of Advanced Study at the University of London organises an annual international debate for outstanding young researchers in the humanities and social sciences. The competition is open to scholars who are in their final-year of doctoral study or up to 10 years beyond the award of their doctorate. Selected applicants will be awarded bursaries to contribute to travel and accommodation costs.

This year’s theme is “Is there a future for human rights in a non-Western world?” and a call for papers is out with a final submission date of Monday 7 february 2011.

The subject certainly seems suitable for a number of scholars working on slum tourism and the possibilities of bursaries to contribute travel and accommodation costs may provide an opportunity for overseas scholars to come and share their work.

Favela tours and the colonial legacy

Academic publication, , , ,

At the 2010 London Debates series, a set of international discussion workshops aiming to bring together early career researchers and invited senior researchers. Bianca Freire-Medieros presented a paper on the relation between the colonial legacy and favela tours. Her discussion is interesting and contains several linkages to the ethical debate on slum tourism as well. Among other things she concludes:

“Within culture, the margins, albeit still peripheral”, writes Stuart Hall, “have never been a space more productive than they are today” (quoted in Schwertner 2007). Such productive space is not only an effect of the opening in the dominating spaces, but also “results from cultural policies on the different, from struggles around the different, from the production of new identities and from the appearance of new subjects  in the political and cultural arena” (ibid.). Hall argues that, although the opening of new spaces for the different is extremely positive, it might be equally perverse if the “characters of margin” are seen as no more than “a  flavor of the exotic”. It seems to me that such is precisely the dilemma of the touristic favela, not because it is a touristic attraction, but for it is still perceived as belonging on the margins of Brazilian culture.

To understand how she reached this conclusion you can download the full paper (pdf 330 kb) from the London Debates Website. If you disagree with her or would like to discuss her findings, feel free to comment, if you have written a similar paper yourself and would like to publish it on slumtourism.net, please let us know!

Slum Tourism on the internet December 2010

Slum tourism in the media

News stories and opinion articles on Slum tourism in December

Murder is killing business in Gugs – The murder of British tourist Shrien Dewani is ‘killing business’ in Gugulethu township in South Africa

Rio Sweeps Slums Ahead Of Tourism Rush – Article about the military raids in the Rocinha Favela in Rio de Janeiro. The author makes the case that these raids are done in order for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.

On a more positive note, a South African Wine Company chose Gugulethu as the place to launch their new wine label. The article reads to me a bit as an advertisement but it is interesting that a company would chose the townships for such launches.

An extensive personal account looking at benefits and disadvantages of slum tourism can be found at http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/10-12/slum-tourism-debate.html.

Do you know of any news articles regarding slum tourism? Please let us know using the contact form!

Rio Sweeps Slums Ahead Of Tourism RushR

Slum Tourism around the World

Opinion piece, , , , , ,

An interesting finding of the Destination Slum! conference for me was just how many different shapes and forms slum tourism has across the world. The term slum tourism may act as an overencompassing term, but it does hold certain negative connotations and can lead to generalisations that do not fit in certain contexts. Not only may the term be unable to fully accommodate the great differences between “slum areas” around the world, it also suggests “slums” are homogenous entities. Of course this is not the case. While nearly all areas that are visited under the name of slum tourism include people living in shacks, other parts of these areas often are indistinguishable from other (richer) suburbs that would never be represented as slums.

Langa township, South Africa

In different countries other terms have become more common to better describe the localised forms of slum tourism. The most famous terms are of course favela tourism in Brazil and township tourism in South Africa. At the Destination Slum! conference however we were also told that a more appropriate term for slums in Egypt would be  “Ashwa’iyyatt”, which may lead to the term Ashwa’iyyatt tourism. We were also informed that in China “slum areas” are not necessarily completely urbanised and slum tourism instead may be named “tourism to villages in the city“.

While these terms are undoubtedly better descriptives of the local forms of tourism, I do believe there is a place for the name slum tourism to describe the worldwide phenomenon. Although by no means perfect, it does appear to be able to bring together and combine these differerent outings of tourism around the world in one way or the other. Others may disagree and believe the term is actually hindering our understanding of the concept of slum tourism.

Feel free to comment with your opinion or to share your thoughts on other related questions such as: What other terms are used to describe slum tourism around the world and why are they more accurate than the general name slum tourism or how would we actually define slum tourism?

Post on Slumtourism.net yourself – Now easier than ever!

slumtourism.net

It is now easier to post items yourself on Slumtourism.net. If you have reflection on slum tourism that you want to share, know of an upcoming event, have recently published a journal article, have a discussion question, etc. you can post it yourself.

When logged in, simply go to the toolbar on the right side of the homepage and click on “New Blog Post”. You can click on the picture on the righthand side see where this option will appear. Remember that it will only show after you have been logged in.

This will take you to the to main editing screen (see below). Here you can edit your post using the html editor. When you are done, you can publish it using the “Submit for review” button on the right (visible in the red box on the picture below). Your post will now be send for review to prevent spam and published soon. Should you want to, you can choose to add tags and/or place your article in a category. However this is not required to post. Good luck posting. If this is still too much you can of course also send your posts to info@slumtourism.net, or simply comment on the existing posts!