Shame and Rebellion in Slum Tourism Debating Development

Shame and Rebellion in (Slum) Tourism Debating Development Antwerp 2015 Dr Fabian Frenzel University of Leicester, UK

What is tourism? Unlike Migration? Economic vs cultural, social and political dimensions Tourism is often seen only in economic terms. Tourism and Poverty: focus on economic effects Political, cultural and social aspects get too little attention Why?

Tourism and Shame We don‘t like to see tourists: ‚Idiotic‘ Behaviour Awkwardness Depending on help We see ‘mirror images of ourselves’ (Urbain 1997) Be more than a tourist!

Tourism as Privilege A second reason to be ashamed. Free time: laziness Tourism: wealth ‚global Mobility Injustice‘ Be more than a tourist results in ‘Anti-Tourism’ Tourism Research affected by anti-tourism: Is David Harvey a tourist in Barcelona?

Rebellious Tourism History of Tourism Understanding the world Curiosity (Stagl 2005) Enlightenment ‚Exit‘ and ‘Exodus’ Overcoming boundaries

Rebellious Tourism 2 The right to be lazy Carnival Capitalist expansion of work time Social struggles for free time UN enshrined right to holidays The utopia of overcoming work: work-free society

Rebellious Tourism in action Harvey: Tourism realises value for post-Fordist capital. But: Tourists produce values in the first place. Tourists make places valuable: (their activities are like (free) work) Complexity but: Tourist value practices are specific: relatively powerful ‚idiotic‘ and ‚rebellious‘

How does this look like in slum tourism? Local Value Regimes Labour without full recognition Limited provision of infrastructures and care by the state Legitimisations: Invisibility Dirt Disease Laziness Criminality Shame

Slum Tourism valorises a slum: Example Rocinha 1992 Rio Conference Rebellious tourists want to be more than tourists Local guides start to offer tours

Tourists produce values Disruption of local value regime „What is there to see? “ Local elites oppose favela tourism Tourists learn and share their insights Get to know the space.

Discourses and infrastructures Travel guide books report. More activities: Parties, volunteer, art and research projects, cheap living space. Hostels and meeting spaces emerge. Policy adaption and capitalist valorisation. (But this is secondary and not necessary)

Coalitions Tourists are part of the struggle for equitable urban development. Tourism’s potential: Relative power Idiocy Rebelliousness Disrupting local value regimes Don‘t fall into trap of anti-tourism Research, activism and development not so different from tourist practice: Ethics of being idiotic!