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This article will cover the following points:

• What is Slum tourism?
• Why do people engage in Slum tourism?
• The consequences of ‘slumming”

The existence of slums dates back to 1992, when The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development took place in Rio de Janeiro [1]. This gave birth to Slum tourism in Brazil: tourists, mostly journalists and social activists, paid local services to take them to one of the largest slums (favelas) in South America.

What is Slum tourism?

Slum tourism explains the preference for people to visit, for touristic purposes, places that are poor and underdeveloped [2]. When capitalism came along, people left the countryside to move to big cities, creating a division of classes: the poor and the rich. As a consequence, Slum tourism appeared as a paradoxical answer to this new economic reality. Essentially, Slum tourism is “this curiosity of the rich to consume the poor as a spectacle”. Similarly, it can be seen as the by-product of an uneven urbanization. 

Slums are often depicted in the film industry, in movies such as “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008) [3] or “City of God” (2003) [4]. If you have watched these movies, you are aware of the interpretation they offer about slum culture: poor people from the slums are born with the dream of escaping them. Slum tourism, on the contrary, brings us to the awkward position of examining people that find the slum culture a privileged attraction! 

Why slum tourism?

Before the beginning of the 21st century, not much was known about Slum tourism [2]. Times have changed though, and here we are with some new perspectives on what drives people to visit slums. We will call these perspectives “gazes”. 

The general idea is that the Global North (slum gazers) looks upon the Global South (gazed upon) because they miss adventure. For example, the fact that crime levels are higher in slums provides thrill to people from urbanized societies. Let’s explore some possible explanations of why Slum Tourism exists[2]:

• Political Gaze - because of the growing industry of tourism, people were pushed to travel for leisure to economically poor destinations. Here, governments took advantage of this by providing entertainment industries to visitors (i.e. sex entertainment in Thailand).
• Activist and Charity Gaze - Slum tourists believe that people living in slums need some kind of care or support, and so they assume that them visiting slums will somehow show solidarity to its residents.  
• Cultural Gaze - Tourists believe that slums provide a cultural exchange of knowledge, a place where they can educate themselves on how the “shadowed’’ places on the map work and thus live the “authentic” touristic experience.
• Here we should make a distinction. There are people who are genuinely interested in the culture of a place and visit it for educational purposes. However, others engage in the exploitation of these cultures for personal reasons i.e., romanticizing the life in the slums, which only promotes the terrible conditions which people live in. Still, this is usually a somewhat unconscious thought process so it is hard to realistically make this distinction.
• Heritage Gaze - International organizations encourage visit to the slums as a way to help preserve their heritage

Another explanation for why tourists engage in this kind of activity is for their difference in social identity strength and morals. Social identity strength explains how people identify themselves according to personal, environmental factors of their ethnic group, political party or even a place. For example, Brazilians will identify strongly with a favela in Rio de Janeiro, compared to Americans, which will identify stronger with a city close to them, like Los Angeles.

How is this relevant? Social identity influences the travellers’ thoughts, feelings and behaviour. However, social identity alone does not lead to Slum tourism. The sense of morals combined with it though, does. Tourists that identify with slums possess a high social identity strength for these. If combined with low morale, meaning that they consider poverty and inequality as attractions, they will engage in Slum tourism. In contrast, those travellers that feel guilty, sad or ashamed about the societal phenomena that are present in the slums, possess higher morals and will not engage in Slum tourism. 

Lastly, let’s not forget that people are beings who constantly need to feel confident, have high self-esteem and self-worth [5]. Basically, this is why we tend to compare ourselves with others. The Jones effect [6] explains that we often compare ourselves to “the Joneses”: our hypothetical neighbours, the people next door. Slum tourism therefore gives people the opportunity to observe the less fortunate and feel superior. Taking pictures of the slum and printing them to stick them on their fridge enables people to constantly remember that there are others that suffer more, and that they are luckier or even happier. But, are they?

What are the consequences of slumming? 

In 2008, Wacquant outlined three major “consequences of territorial stigma” [7]. These are aspects of poverty that add to stigma and the economic misery of the slums:

1. Personal indignity of the residents of the slums
2. The combined effects of: avoidance and neglect by visitors, the redlining of the banks (denial to give financial support), leading to neglect of politicians
3. The effects on the relationships among the inhabitants of ghettos and favelas, as in that everybody is in fear and feels suspicious of each other. 

While territorial stigma affects the areas and people living inside and nearby slums, it does not marginalize tourists that keep visiting them[8]. Instead, it keeps attracting “the outsiders”, making them appear like the “development option” for locals. However, the direct psychological, social and economic effects that Slum tourism has on the inhabitants is barely unexplored [9]. We can imagine, though, that this type of tourism might subsidize only funds that maintain the tourism cycle, instead of improving the life in slums.  

All in all, slum tourism is a phenomenon originating in the 90’s and from the favelas in Brazil, and moving into the 21st century it is examined more and more. Scholars have reached to conclusions as to why people engage in this kind of tourism. Even if the majority of the reasons are questionable, educational purposes and the heritage promotions of these areas are still favoured by slum tourism. People however can engage in this to feed their ego and feel superior to others. What do you think? Have you ever visited favelas in Rio or slums in Mumbai? Feel free to comment on the article. 

Additional resources:

• Movies: Don’t forget to watch Slum Dog Millionaire (2008) and the City of God (2002). Besides being incredible movies, they portray the slums quite well!
• Website: https://michaelbrein.com/travel-psychology/mini-essays/the-psychology-of-slum-tourism/ Travel Psychologist Dr. Michael Brein writes about slum tourism and not only. Check it out!

References

1. Von Schuckmann, J., S. G. Barros, L., S. Dias, R., & Andrade, E. B. (2017). From Slum Tourism to Smiley Selfies: The Role of Social Identity Strength in the Consumption of Morally Ambiguous Experiences. SSRN Electronic Journal .doi:10.2139/ssrn.3089033
2. Tzanelli, Rodanthi (2018) Slum Tourism: A Review of State-of-the-Art Scholarship, Tourism Culture & Communication, 18(2), 149-155, Cognizant Communication Corporation, doi: 10.3727/109830418X15230353469528
3. Boyle, D., Tandran, L. (2008) Slum Dog Millionaire
4. Meirelles, F., Lund, K. (2002) Cidade de Deus (City of God)
5. Crocker, J., Brook, A. T., Niiya, Y., & Villacorta, M. (2006). The Pursuit of Self-Esteem: Contingencies of Self-Worth and Self-Regulation. Journal of Personality, 74(6), 1749–1772. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00427.x
6. Dr. Brein, M. Slum Dog Tourism: The Vagaries of Slum Tourism and Disaster Tourism. The Psychology of Slum Tourism Travel, https://michaelbrein.com/travel-psychology/mini-essays/the-psychology-of-slum-tourism/
7. Frenzel, F. (2014) Slum Tourism and Urban Regeneration: Touring Inner Johannesburg. Urban Forum 25, 431–447. https://doi-org.eur.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s12132-014-9236-2
8. Wacquant, L., Slater, T., & Pereira, V. B. (2014). Territorial Stigmatization in Action. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 46(6), 1270–1280. https://doi.org/10.1068/a4606ge
9. Burgold, J., Frenzel, F., & Rolfes, M. (2013). Observations on slums and their touristification. Die Erde, 144(2), 99–104.