Slum Tourism: Representing and Interpreting ‘Reality’ in Dharavi, Mumbai

Dyson, P. L.

doi:10.1080/14616688.2011.609900

Cited by 74 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In my 2014 paper, the specific interest was in urban regeneration and tourism's role in it, but of course other questions can and have been asked: how is poverty represented in these tours (Dürr and Jaffe 2012;Dyson 2012;Jones and Sanyal 2015;Meschkank 2010)? What does the political economy of these tours look like (Ekdale 2010;Koens 2012;Rogerson 2004)?…”

Section: The Use Of the Concepts Slum And Slum Tourismmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Question of Using the Concept ‘Slum Tourism’ for Urban Tourism in Stigmatised Neighbourhoods in Inner City Johannesburg

Frenzel

2017

Urban Forum

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Since 2012, there has been a significant growth in tourism in inner city Johannesburg. Some of this tourism materialises as walking tours in disadvantaged and relatively poor inner city neighbourhoods, some of which were until recently considered no-go areas. In a paper published in Urban Forum in 2014 (Frenzel 2014), I have analysed this new phenomenon in the context of slum tourism. I define slum tourism as such forms of tourism where poverty and associated signifiers become central themes and (part of the) attraction of the visited destination. Following a broad empirical research project, Hoogendoorn and Giddy (2017) have questioned whether the concept slum tourism should be used when discussing tourism in inner city Johannesburg. This paper forms a response to the paper of Hoogendoorn and Giddy (2017).

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Section: The Use Of the Concepts Slum And Slum Tourismmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Question of Using the Concept ‘Slum Tourism’ for Urban Tourism in Stigmatised Neighbourhoods in Inner City Johannesburg

Frenzel

2017

Urban Forum

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“…A number of authors have suggested that while tours might be predicated on an Orientalist fantasy in which slums operate as sexualised, exotic or primitive spaces, both operators and participants show a motivation and capacity to transcend these representations, challenging some preconceptions about the poor (Dyson 2012;Meschkank 2011;Rolfes 2010;Linke 2012;Diekmann and Hannam, 2012;Freire-Medeiros, 2011 bathing, negotiating prices with prostitutes, and the shock at witnessing old people abandoned at the dying grounds (Sen 2008). The experience provoked participants to reflect on their good 'luck', but also justified a sense that they had taken the right life choices and of cultural superiority.…”

Section: The Slum As Spectaclementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the "Third Face of Mumbai", to quote one tour document, attention is turned away from a city pushing hard to promote itself as 'world class' but also associated with the abject poverty of pavement dwellers, street children and beggars. Tours, of course, retain the negativity associated with slums, the pre-cognate ideas of dirt and suffering, as the logic for the tours themselves and the need for development projects that are funded in some cases by them (Dyson, 2012). But, some authors point to the political and social potency of tours, a means to contest the aspirational drives of the entrepreneurial city, a means to disrupt the urban experience rendered through the competing spectacle of mega-homes and movie stars.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spectacle and Suffering: The Mumbai slum as a worlded space

Jones

Sanyal

2015

Geoforum

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This paper examines the relationship between spectacle and worlding. Using Dharavi as the site (cite) of analysis, the paper considers how slum tours, art and television documentaries produce particular narratives and imaginaries of the slum. We move beyond the discussions of voyeurism and the aestheticization of poverty and suggest, that the knowledge of the slum is entangled with the motives, preconceptions and experiences of multiple actors, giving the slum a relation with the 'world' that holds opportunities to disrupt hegemonic views of urbanism in Mumbai, while centering its own position as a locus of knowledge on urban poverty. The paper suggests that analysing the spectacle of the slum through the lens of worlding offers ways to think critically of how urban space is reordered and urban knowledge is produced and circulated.

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“…A second question is whether slum tourism can help change attitudes of an area and how attempts to do so look like. In previous literature Meschkank 2010;Dyson 2012) this has mostly concerned questions over whether tourists' ideas of a place have changed. However to tackle shame and stigma attached to poverty in these areas, changes also need to affect local elites and the slum dwellers themselves.…”

Section: Symbolic Aspects Of Povertymentioning

confidence: 99%

Slum Tourism and Urban Regeneration: Touring Inner Johannesburg

Frenzel

2014

Urban Forum

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Much attention has been paid to township tourism in South Africa, a practice of tourism that emerged in Apartheid South Africa with different organised tours catering for governmental officials, faith-based groups and anti-apartheid activists. In democratic South Africa township tourism has developed into a mainstream tourism activity and operators now offer township tours, township stays and other tourist activities in townships across rural and urban South Africa. Township tourism has also been one central empirical pillar of the relatively new research area of slum tourism addressing tourism in slums and areas of relative urban poverty across the globe. Based on recent preliminary empirical research in Johannesburg this paper shows that slum tourism can now also be observed in areas other than townships in South Africa, including perceived 'no-go areas' in inner-city Johannesburg.The expansion of slum tourism beyond townships in Johannesburg points to an increasingly complex picture of urban poverty in South Africa. It also allows reflections on the role of slum tourism in poverty alleviation and urban regeneration, responding to and addressing 'territorial stigma' and other related symbolic aspects of poverty. Analysing the motivations and perspectives of tour operators of some of these new tours, the paper finds that the new slum tourism in South Africa is pursued in order to serve as an urban development and regeneration tool from below. It responds to an

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Slum Tourism: Representing and Interpreting ‘Reality’ in Dharavi, Mumbai

Cited by 74 publications

References 23 publications

On the Question of Using the Concept ‘Slum Tourism’ for Urban Tourism in Stigmatised Neighbourhoods in Inner City Johannesburg

On the Question of Using the Concept ‘Slum Tourism’ for Urban Tourism in Stigmatised Neighbourhoods in Inner City Johannesburg

Spectacle and Suffering: The Mumbai slum as a worlded space

Slum Tourism and Urban Regeneration: Touring Inner Johannesburg

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