Hurricane Katrina left physical and emotional scars on New Orleans, and America, but nowhere was its impact more devastating than the city’s Lower Ninth Ward. Three years after the storm, in October 2008, the district was still pockmarked with half-demolished homes and patches of overgrown grass. It was also dotted with artworks, site-specific installations by the likes of Wangechi Mutu and her Ms Sarah House. Those works formed part of the city’s inaugural art biennial, Prospect New Orleans, bringing tourists to drive and wander through the area in droves. But visitors were caught in an uncomfortable paradox, their art viewing underpinned by the backdrop of one of America’s poorest neighborhoods—or what was left of it.
Locals stood by as various VIPs peered at Mutu’s work. When one of the arterati mustered up courage enough to ask if she minded the influx of gawkers, she shrugged and dodged the question. “It’s nice to have the art here, because it means people are coming to see more than just our ruined homes.” Not everyone reacted to the incomers with such neutrality, though—take one hand-painted sign erected in the neighborhood post-Katrina, that read:
TOURIST Shame On You Driving BY without stopping Paying to see my pain 1,600+ DIED HERE
Both reactions are understandable, and spotlight the uneasy distinction locals in the area might have drawn between being viewed rather than feeling seen. Is it wrong, though, to go beyond the sightseeing mainstays of somewhere like the French Quarter and into a corner of the city that might be blighted or underprivileged as these visitors did? It’s an awkward, but intriguing, question, and one that underpins a nascent niche in travel. It has been nicknamed ‘slum tourism,’ though it’s a broad umbrella term travel that involves visiting underprivileged areas in well-trafficked destinations. Such experiences are complex, since they can seem simultaneously important (bringing much-needed revenues, educating visitors first hand) and inappropriate (a gesture of misunderstanding fitting for a modern-day Marie Antoinette).
Indeed, even those who operate in the field seem to struggle to reconcile those divergent urges. Researching this story, there was resistance, suspicion, and even outright hostility from seasoned slum tourism vets. Deepa Krishnan runs Mumbai Magic, which specializes in tours around the city, home to what’s estimated as Asia’s largest slum; here, about a million people live in ad hoc homes a few miles from Bollywood’s glitz (it’s now best known as home to the hero of Slumdog Millionaire). "The Spirit of Dharavi" tour takes in this settlement, a two-hour glimpse into everyday life aiming to show that the squalor for which it’s become shorthand is only part of Dharavi story. It’s also a hub of recycling, for example, and home to women’s co-op for papadum-making. Organized as a community project, rather than on a commercial basis, all profits are ploughed back into Dharavi. Yet pressed to talk by phone rather than email, Deepa balked. “I’ve been misquoted too often,” she said.
The organizer of another alt-tourism operation was even more reluctant, and asked not to be quoted, or included here, at all. Its superb premise—the formerly homeless act as guides to help visitors see and understand overlooked corners of a well-trafficked city—seemed smartly to upend tradition. Rather than isolating ‘the other,’ it shows the interconnectedness of so much in a modern city. The fact that both of these firms, whose businesses fall squarely into such non-traditional tours, are so squeamish about the topic is instructive—and reassuring for the rest of us when we’re conflicted about whether or not it’s ethical to treat deprivation as a distraction.
The contemporary concept of slum tourism dates back about 30 years, according to Ko Koens, Ph.D., a Dutch academic who specializes in this field and runs slumtourism.net. The South African government began bussing municipal workers into townships like Soweto in the 1980s, he explains, intending to educate them on no-go areas within their fiefdom. “International tourists, mostly activists, who wanted to show their support [for township-dwellers] started doing these tours, too. And after apartheid ended, the operators who were running them for the government realized they could do them commercially.” (It’s now a vital part of the country’s tourism economy, with some estimates that one in four visitors to the country book a Township Tour.)
Simultaneously, tourists were beginning to explore the slums or favelas of Rio de Janeiro. These are the shantytowns that six percent of Brazil’s population calls home. Bolted to the steep hills overlooking the waterfront mansions where wealthy Cariocas chose to live, these higgledy piggledy shacks perch precariously, as if jumbled in the aftermath of an earthquake. From here, the idea of slum tourism began spreading across the world, from Nairobi to the Dominican Republic, and of course, India. Mumbai Magic isn’t alone in operating tours of Bombay’s Dharavi slums—there are countless tours available of areas that now rival the Marine Drive or the Gateway of India as local attractions.
Yet though it’s a thriving new niche, many travelers remain squeamish about the idea. In part, of course, it’s thanks to the words "slum tourism," yet none of the alternatives seem any less confrontational. Call it poorism, misery tourism, poverty tourism—it still smacks of exploitation. There are also safety concerns, too: After all, Brazil supplied almost half the entries in a recent list of the world’s 50 most dangerous cities, not to mention that the world’s latest health crisis is headquartered in the stagnant waters on which the favela residents rely. The sense of being an interloper, or that such deprivation is Disneyfied into a showcase solely for visitors, is an additional factor—especially when spoofish ideas like Emoya’s Shanty Town hotel, a faux South African slum that offsets discomforts like outdoor toilets with underfloor heating and Wi-Fi, turn out not to be Saturday Night Live skits.
Muddled motivations add to the discomfort; one in-depth study found it was pure curiosity, rather than education, say, or self-actualization, that drove most visitors to book a trip around the Dharavi slums. One first-hand account by a Kenyan who went from the slums of Nairobi to studying at Wesleyan University underlines those awkward findings. “I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes… “ he wrote. “Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.” He makes one rule of any such trips all too clear: If you undertake any such tours, focus on memories rather than Instagram posts.
The biggest challenge, though, is the lack of accreditation. It's still a frustratingly opaque process, to gauge how profits made will directly improve conditions in that slum, admits Tony Carne, who runs Urban Adventures, a division of socially conscious firm Intrepid Travel. His firm is a moderated marketplace for independent guides—much like an Etsy for travel—and offers a wide range of slum tours around the world. Carne supports some form of regulation to help reassure would-be clients of a slum tour’s ethical credentials. “The entire integrity of our business is sitting on this being the right thing to do,” he says, though he also predicts a shift in the business, likely to make such regulation unnecessary. Many charities have begun suggesting these slum tours to donors keen to see how and where their money is used, outsourced versions of the visits long available to institutional donors. He is already in to co-brand slum tours with several major nonprofits, including Action Aid via its Safe Cities program; Carne hopes that such partnerships will reassure travelers queasy about such tours’ ethics and finances. “Everyone from the U.N. down has said poverty alleviation through tourism can only be a reality if someone does something,” he says. “It will not solve itself by committee. It will solve itself by action.”
Carne’s theory was echoed by my colleague Laura Dannen Redman, who visited the Philippi township in Cape Town under the aegis of a local nonprofit. It was a private tour, but the group hopes to increase awareness to bolster the settlement’s infrastructure. She still vividly recalls what she saw, half a year later. “The homes were corrugated iron, but tidy, exuding a sense of pride with clean curtains in the windows. But there was this one open gutter I can't forget. The water was tinged green, littered with what looked like weeks’ worth of garbage—plastic wrappers and bottles and other detritus. It backed the neighborhood like a gangrenous moat," she says. "They deserve better. It does feel disingenuous, shameful, even if you’re there to learn and want to help. But the end result was motivating. We did feel called to action, to pay more attention to the plight of so many South Africans.” In the end, perhaps, it isn’t what we call it, or even why we do it that matters—it’s whether the slum tourism experience inspires us to try to make a change.