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Slum tourism, poverty tourism, ghetto tourism or trauma tourism is a type of
city tourism that involves visiting impoverished areas. Originally focused on the slums and
ghetto
A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...
s of London and
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
in the 19th century, slum tourism is now prominent in South Africa,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, Brazil,
Kenya
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, national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
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, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
...
,
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, Russia and the United States.
History
![Teleférico do Complexo do Alemão 06 2014 9320](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Telef%C3%A9rico_do_Complexo_do_Alem%C3%A3o_06_2014_9320.JPG)
The ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
'' dates the first use of the word ''slumming'' to 1884. In London, people visited slum neighborhoods such as
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...
or
Shoreditch to observe life in this situation. By 1884 wealthier people in New York City began to visit the
Bowery
The Bowery () is a street and neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north.Jackson, Kenneth L. ...
and the
Five Points, Manhattan
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a 19th-century neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The neighborhood, partly built on low lying land that had filled in the freshwater lake known as the Collect Pond, was generally defined as bein ...
on the
Lower East Side, neighborhoods of poor immigrants, to see "
how the other half lives
''How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York'' (1890) is an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. The photographs served as a basis ...
".
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
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
.
In the mid-1990s, international tours were organized with destinations in the most disadvantaged areas of developing nations, often known as
slums
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily in ...
. They have grown in popularity, and are often run and advertised by professional companies. In
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
, over 300,000 tourists visit the city each year to view the slums.
Ghetto tourism was first studied in 2005 by Michael Stephens in the cultural-criticism journal ''
PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...
''. 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
The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists some ...
without leaving home. International tourists to New York City in the 1980s led to a successful tourism boom in
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
. By 2002,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
began offering tours of blighted inner-city
neighborhoods
A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...
. After
Hurricane Katrina, tours were offered in flood-ravaged
Lower Ninth Ward
The Lower Ninth Ward is a neighborhood in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. As the name implies, it is part of the 9th Ward of New Orleans. The Lower Ninth Ward is often thought of as the entire area within New Orleans downriver of the Indus ...
, a notoriously violent and poor section of New Orleans. The Wire Tour is a tour of slums in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
.
Prior to the release of ''
Slumdog Millionaire
''Slumdog Millionaire'' is a 2008 British drama film that is a loose adaptation of the novel '' Q & A'' (2005) by Indian author Vikas Swarup. It narrates the story of 18-year-old Jamal Malik from the Juhu slums of Mumbai. Starring Dev Pa ...
'' in 2008,
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
was a slum tourist destination.
[
In December 2010, the first international conference on slum tourism was held in ]Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
. A social network of people working in or with slum tourism has been set up.
Locations
Slum tourism is mainly performed in urban areas of developing countries, most often named after the type of areas that are visited:
* Township tourism: in post-apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
South Africa and Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
. South African settlements are still visibly divided into wealthy, historically white suburbs and poor, historically black townships, because of the effects of apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
and racial segregation.
* Favela
Favela () is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term was first used in the Providência neighborhood in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had ...
tourism: in Brazil
* India: Various places including Dharavi
Dharavi is a locality in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, considered to be one of the world's largest slums. Dharavi has an area of just over and a population of about 1,000,000. With a population density of over , Dharavi is one of the most dens ...
in Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
, as depicted in the movie ''Slumdog Millionaire
''Slumdog Millionaire'' is a 2008 British drama film that is a loose adaptation of the novel '' Q & A'' (2005) by Indian author Vikas Swarup. It narrates the story of 18-year-old Jamal Malik from the Juhu slums of Mumbai. Starring Dev Pa ...
''
* Social or religious divisions: New York City, North America and Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
, Northern Ireland.
* Similarly, after Hurricane Katrina, impoverished areas of Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
became slum tourist attractions as a result of disaster tourism.
* It is also encouraged by direct or indirect mention of certain areas by popular artists. Travel to certain parts of Detroit that include 8 Mile Road
8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9.
In mathematics
8 is:
* a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2.
* a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
, known for the role the travel route played in the similarly titled '' 8 Mile'' film starring Eminem, or to Crenshaw Boulevard
Crenshaw Boulevard is a north-south thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California, that runs through Crenshaw and other neighborhoods along a 23-mile (37.76 km) route in the west-central part of the city.
The street extends between Wilshire Bouleva ...
in South Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown.
It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as a ...
, a metropolitan area that inspired an entire generation of pioneering musical influence are examples.
* Charleroi, in Belgium, is another example of this phenomenon in a developed country.
Motivations
A 2010 study by the University of Pennsylvania showed that tourists in Mumbai's Dharavi
Dharavi is a locality in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, considered to be one of the world's largest slums. Dharavi has an area of just over and a population of about 1,000,000. With a population density of over , Dharavi is one of the most dens ...
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.[ Many tourists often come to the slums to put their life in perspective.][
Stevens wrote: "The demand for shows that provide a window into the ghetto—from street-real network crime shows like COPS to super-realistic cable series like The Wire—has expanded in direct proportion to the increasing safety of American middle class life ... . As 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."
]
Criticism
Slum tourism has been the subject of much controversy, with critics labelling the voyeuristic aspects of slum tourism as poverty porn
Poverty porn, also known as pornography of poverty, development porn, famine porn, or stereotype porn, has been defined as "any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor's condition in order to generate the nece ...
. Both critiques and defenses of the practice have been made in the editorial pages of prominent newspapers, such as the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', London ''Times
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events, and a fundamental quantity of measuring systems.
Time or times may also refer to:
Temporal measurement
* Time in physics, defined by its measurement
* Time standard, civil time speci ...
'', 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
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' Op-Ed section, "They get photos; we lose a piece of our dignity." Critics call the tours voyeuristic
Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature.
The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". A ...
and exploitative. Slum tourism critics have also cited the fact that Christmas and Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, thr ...
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.
The tours provide employment and income for tour guides from the slums, an opportunity for craft-workers to sell souvenirs
A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a ...
, and may invest back in the community with profit that is earned.[ Similarly, the argument has been raised that well-off tourists may be more motivated to help as a result.
In 2013, controversy arose when "Real Bronx Tours" offered tours of ]the Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
, North America, advertised as "a ride through a real New York City 'ghetto'... he boroughwas notorious for drugs, gangs, crime and murders". Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and New York City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito
Melissa Mark-Viverito (born April 1, 1969) is an American Democratic Party (United States), Democratic politician and former speaker of the New York City Council from 2014 to 2017, as well as councilmember for the New York City's 8th City Council ...
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.
Controversy has also arisen over the announcement of a tourism package which offered overnight stay in Mumbai's slums, along with usage of public toilets there, in 2018. The package was announced by Dutch citizen and volunteer David Bijal along with slum resident Ravi Sansi. Bijal told the British daily ''The Guardian'', that people come to Mumbai slums only to post photos on Facebook, Instead, his package is aimed at getting to know the slums better. Bijal also said that the money given by the tourists will be given to the households where they stay. While various NGOs have criticized the program for selling poverty, others have argued that such programs are needed to change the people's perception of slums.
See also
*"Common People
A commoner, also known as the ''common man'', ''commoners'', the ''common people'' or the ''masses'', was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither ...
", popular song about a slum tourist
* ''Havoc'', a 2005 film in which the protagonists engage in slum tourism
* Disaster tourism
*Human zoo
Human zoos, also known as ethnological expositions, were public displays of people, usually in a so-called "natural" or "primitive" state. They were most prominent during the 19th and 20th centuries. These displays sometimes emphasized the sup ...
*Ruins photography
Ruins photography, sometimes called ruin porn, is a recent movement in photography that takes the decay of the built environment (cities, buildings, or infrastructure) as its subject. While "ruins" may be broadly defined as the remnants of h ...
*Urban exploration
Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex and sometimes known as roof and tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical inter ...
References
External links
{{adventure travel
Adventure travel
Tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...
Types of tourism