Explorations | Exploraciones

Theorizing Slum Tourism: Performing, Negotiating and Transforming Inequality

Authors:

Eveline Dürr
Email Eveline Dürr
Rivke Jaffe

Eveline Dürr, Professor at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology,Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich
Eveline Dürr is a Professor at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology,Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. Previously, she held a position as Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. She received her PhD and venia legendi (Habilitation) from the University of Freiburg, Germany. She has conducted fieldwork in Mexico, the USA, New Zealand and Germany on topics ranging from patterns of cultural change to migration and the formation of cultural identities. Her research projects and publications reflect her interests in urban anthropology, spatiality, representation and globalisation, and take into consideration the historical trajectories that have formed present conditions. She has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and Tourism Geographies.
Rivke Jaffe, Assistant Professor at the Centre for Urban Studies at the Universityof Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Rivke Jaffe is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Urban Studies at the Universityof Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She previously held teaching and research positions at Leiden University, the University of the West Indies, and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV). She has conducted fieldwork in Jamaica, Curaçao and Suriname on topics ranging from the urban environment to the political economy of multiculturalism. Her current research, in Jamaica, studies how criminal organizations and the state share control over urban spaces and populations, and the formulations of governance and citizenship that result from this. She is the author of several peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Anthropological Quarterly, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Social and Cultural Geography. In addition, she is the editor of The Caribbean City (Ian Randle, 2008) and the co-editor of Urban Pollution (with Eveline Dürr, Berghahn, 2010).

Abstract

Abstract:

This Exploration focuses on the emerging field of slum tourism research, which has the potential to connect Latin American and Caribbean studies on tourism and urban inequality. Slum tourism involves transforming poverty, squalor and violence into a tourism product. Drawing on both altruism and voyeurism, this form of tourism is a complex phenomenon that raises various questions concerning power, inequality and subjectivity. This essay seeks to advance the theoretical debate on slum tourism research and to stimulate comparative studies. Introducing brief examples of slum tourism in Mexico and Jamaica, this contribution moves towards an initial theorization of the performance, negotiation and transformation of inequality in a framework of tourism and global mobilities.

Resumen: Teorizar el Turismo en las zonas marginadas: Construcción, negociación y transformación de la desigualdad

Esta Exploración se centra en el campo emergente del turismo en zonas marginadas, que tiene como potencial conectar a América Latina y el Caribe en los estudios sobre el turismo y la desigualdad urbana. Turismo 'Slum' implica la transformación de la pobreza, la miseria y la violencia en un producto turístico. Basándose tanto en el altruismo como en el voyerismo, esta forma de turismo es un fenómeno complejo que plantea diversas cuestiones relativas al poder, la desigualdad y la subjetividad. Con este ensayo se pretende avanzar en el debate teórico sobre la investigación de turismo en zonas marginadas y estimular estudios comparativos. Presentando ejemplos breves de turismo en barrios pobres en la ciudad de México y de Jamaica, esta contribución se mueve hacia una teorización inicial de la construcción, la negociación y la transformación de la desigualdad en el marco del turismo y la movilidad global.

Keywords:

tourism inequality urban poverty Mexico Jamaica turismo desigualdad pobreza urbana México

Issue: 93
Page/Article: 113-123
DOI: 10.18352/erlacs.8367

Published on 20 Oct 2012

Peer Reviewed