“Why White European Tourists Are Visiting South African Slums” — Vice News, 2019, 7:02 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5w3e3uYd5c
Would you pay money for a guided tour of an impoverished neighborhood? A new tourism sector in South Africa takes (wealthy, white) tourists through the slums to observe how folks live in poverty. While the tour guide claims he is providing something akin to cultural education, many of the tourists are explicitly there to gawk at poor people. Such tours may be seen as an immersive type of poverty porn, an experience which exploits the stereotype of poor people for the amusement of well-off others. There are many problems with objectifying the poor in this manner such as it conceals structural/economic oppression, depicts the poor as helpless, and is often done for individual or organizational profit (not for the betterment of the impoverished community). On the other hand, an argument could be made that such tourism infuses cash into the community and exposes tourists to the reality of life in the area. Too often tourists are provided with glamorized and corporatized experiences where they never journey outside of their oceanfront resorts. Modern tourism is becoming more like a total institution where a single facility can provide for all of your needs and desires while shielding you from the actual lifestyles and culture of an area. Furthermore, such corporatized resorts are a drain on the local businesses since tourists patronize franchised establishments (e.g., Starbucks) rather than establishments owned/operated by locals.
What are we to make of the slum tours in this video? Who benefits from the tour (and at what cost)? How might social media be fueling this type of tourism?
From the video’s description: Cape Town is the premier tourist destination in South Africa. Wine tours, beaches, and scenic hiking are all within easy driving distance. But if none of that sounds appealing, you can take a guided tour of a slum. Mzu Lembeni runs one of the many tour companies that takes tourists into Cape Town’s townships, impoverished areas that were first created when the Apartheid government forced nonwhites to live in segregated areas. On his tour, tourists can walk right into people’s homes, drink homemade liquor, play with children at a local school, and take as many pictures as they like. For some people, this sounds like exploitation. But Lembeni, who grew up in a township himself, disagrees. “If there was no poverty ... I'll do the township tour, because [of] the culture,” Lembeni says. “I don't sell the poverty, I sell the culture.” Most of Lembeni’s clients are white Europeans, who have come to see the “real” South Africa. Mzu says his tours are the best way to do that. In a country where more than half of the population lives below the poverty line, and where the shadow of apartheid still looms over daily life, a township is a pretty good primer on what “real” looks like for a lot of people. But not everyone who lives in the townships likes the tourists who are constantly wandering their streets. VICE News joined a group of Europeans on vacation to see how local residents feel about being part of the holiday scenery.