10th
Slum Visits: Tourism or Voyeurism?
A couple weeks ago a dear friend sent me the link to an article (click here to read it), Slum Visits: Tourism or Voyeurism?I was put off by the assumptions loaded in two options included the title of the article because there’s at least a few other options than just “tourism” or “voyeurism.”
Anyway, a few days ago the e-mail came back to me and someone really wanted my opinion. If you know me, I’m generally fine giving my opinion. So here is it, and it actually ended up on another friend’s blog as well:generally i feel like this is just one more way the non-poor are exploiting poverty. that we actually have the luxury to chose to take vacation is already a hard issue of global disparity, but then to use our vacations for “slum tourism” is almost a form of pornography.
poverty isn’t a reverse disneyland experience, human rickshaws aren’t theme-park rides, and taking photos of starving children doesn’t humanize them-all these things dehumanize us as voyeuristic opportunists who need that next “fix” of extreme reality to further numb our senses.
“slum tourism” is the first step on a slippery slope of doing “brothel tourism” and maybe even the absurd eventuality of “concentration camp tourism” - i mean, why not? if exposure is supposed to drum up some sort of compassionate response then why not expose ourselves to the worst available opportunities money can buy to get the biggest bang for our buck?
finally, my friends who live in slums are offended when non-poor tourist come unannounced and prancing through their neighborhoods w/ cameras-how about we have a bunch of rich people surprise us by showing up at our homes early saturday morning and get some lovely snapshots of us getting out of our beds w/ crazy hair or getting some great pictures of our children half-naked in their unchanged diapers? and then even better, publish those photos, put them on-line, or make slideshows out them for their churches-sounds really humanizing to me.
anyway, don’t get me started. i’m not gonna tell you what i REALLY think b/c it’d be brutal…
I’d LOVE to hear what some of you all think about this article.
Post away…
