Morality in aversion?: Meditations on slum tourism and the politics of sight

Abstract

Abstract Despite fairly widespread popularity, slum tourism is enmeshed in moralizing debate. Supporters acknowledge that slum tourism may sometimes be problematic, but also may potentially be an important pedagogical experience which reveals the horrors of capitalism to westerners. Plus, supporters argue, there is no morality in aversion ‐ we should never turn away from slums and poverty. However, social theory on the politics of sight and opacity suggests that the promise of transparency ‐ showing the real poverty ‐ may lead to a violence of seeing and knowing rooted in western development epistemologies. I argue that morality can be found in aversion and turning away from slum tourism in many instances. I suggest that wealthy, western and usually white bodies of slum tourists represent the violence of the status quo which seeks to make legible a periphery and to partially re-integrate into capital those who have been expelled from it. This paper contributes to a growing literature which deploys social theory to understand and critique slum tourism and its relationship with capitalist society.