Theorizing slum tourism: performing, negotiating and transforming inequality

Authors
Publication date 2012
Journal Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe
Volume | Issue number 93
Pages (from-to) 113-123
Organisations
  • Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG) - Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR)
Abstract
This Exploration focuses on the emerging field of slum tourism research, which has the poten-
tial 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.
Document type Article
Language English
Published at http://www.jstor.org/stable/23294474
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