SLUMS & SLUM TOURISM

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1 ISSUE 19: Term 4 Week 1, 12 September 2018 AESTHEHumanities! Weekly Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or Exclusively brought to you by the softened the fibre of a free people. A nation does not AES Humanities Department have to be cruel to be tough. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt ~ ALL ABOUT THE BIG WORLD WE LIVE IN EXCLUSIVE NEWS TODAY SLUMS & SLUM TOURISM A slum is a heavily populated urban area characterised by substandard housing and squalor. Other terms used to refer to slums: shantytown, favela, ghetto, barrio. 1 Slum tourism is not a new phenomenon. Since 1840, rich Londoners began visiting the ill-reputed East End to gawk at the poor, usually under the pretence of charity. 2 The term slumming was added to the 1884 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, meaning to go into, or frequent, slums for discreditable purposes. 3 Today, slum tourism has grown into a legitimate global industry, bringing in over a million tourists per year. 4 In India, the release of the movie Slumdog Millionnaire created space for even more slum tours. In Nairobi, enterprising Kenyans are guiding tourists on Kibera slum tours.

2 SUBJECT AREA: GEOGRAPHY Inside the Controversial World of Slum Tourism People have toured the world s most marginalized, impoverished districts for over a century. Although a landfill closed in the Tondo district, garbage still litters the area. Hundreds of shanty towns line the riverbanks, train tracks, and garbage dumps in the Filipino capital the most jammed-packed areas in one of the world s most densely populated cities. Around a quarter of its 12 million people are considered informal settlers. Manila is starkly representative of a global problem. According to the United Nations, about a quarter of the world s urban population lives in slums and this figure is rising fast. 2

3 Rich cultural heritage brings visitors to Manila, but some feel compelled to leave the safety of the historic centre sites to get a glimpse of the city s inequality. Tour operators in the Philippines as well as places like Brazil and India have responded by offering slum tours that take outsiders through their poorest districts. Manila is home to hundreds of slums. Smokey Tours visits the Baseco neighborhood, where informal settlers live along the Pasig River. Slum tourism sparks considerable debate around an uncomfortable moral dilemma. No matter what you call it slum tours, reality tours, adventure tourism, poverty tourism many consider the practice little more than privileged people gawking at those less fortunate. Others argue they raise awareness and provide numerous examples of giving back to the local communities. Should tourists simply keep their eyes shut? No Two Cities Alike The main question should be: Is poverty the central reason to visit? Smokey Tours in Manila connected tourists with the reality facing inhabitants of a city landfill in Tondo (until 2014 when it closed) to tell their stories. Now the company tours around Baseco near 3

4 the port, located in the same crowded district and known for its grassroots activism. Locally-based photographer Hannah Reyes Morales documented her experience walking with the group on assignment for National Geographic Travel. I had permission to photograph this tour from both the operator and community officials, but the tour itself had a no photography policy for the tourists. With the policy difficult to enforce, some guests secretly snapped photos on their phones. I observed how differently tourists processed what they were seeing in the tour. There were those who were respectful of their surroundings, and those who were less so. All About Intention Despite sincere attempts by tour operators to reduce offences and give back to locals, the impact of slum tourism stays isolated. Ghettoised communities remain woven into the fabric of major cities around the world, each with their individual political, historical, and economic concerns that cannot be generalised. Better connections between cities allow more people to travel than ever before, with numbers of international tourists growing quickly every year. While prosperity and quality of life have increased in many cities, so has inequality. 4

5 As travellers increasingly seek unique experiences that promise authentic experiences in previously off-limits places, access through tours helps put some areas on the map. Travel connects people who would otherwise not meet, then provides potential to share meaningful stories with others back home. However, for the long-term future of these communities, slum tourism is not a sufficient answer to a growing global problem. 5

6 SUBJECT AREA: SOCIAL STUDIES Portugal, the European country that wants more immigrants Unlike most European nations, who are trying to reduce the influx of migrants, Portugal is bucking the trend by looking to immigration as a way to counter its declining population. "We need more immigration and we won't tolerate any xenophobic rhetoric," Prime Minister Antonio Costa told activists at a party conference in May, drawing resounding applause. 6

7 Demonstrating this openness, Portugal was one of the first countries which volunteered to take in some of the migrants on board the Lifeline, a rescue ship which had been stranded at sea since Jun 21 after Italy refused it safe harbour. And as European leaders struggled to reach a deal at a summit last week over who should take in migrants rescued off the coast of North Africa, Portugal's socialist government was already taking steps to make itself a more attractive destination. "It was a very difficult summit and there are deep divisions which are today threatening the European Union," Costa said after leaving the summit. And Friday's election of former Portuguese minister Antonio Vitorino as head of the International Organization for Migration "demonstrates the great importance that Portugal places on dialogue about the issue," the foreign ministry said. 7

8 AIM: 75,000 PER YEAR Costa, whose father was a well-known communist writer descended from an aristocratic family in the former Portuguese colony of Goa in India, has made reviving the declining population an important part of his political programme. And it will be a central issue for him as the country heads into elections next year in which Costa is predicted to win. According to studies quoted by the government, Portugal needs at least 75,000 new residents every year simply to maintain a stable working population, which today numbers just 10.4 million people. The government on Thursday adopted new regulatory measures to simplify the procedures for getting a visa for students or those wanting to create a start-up. And it also opened the way to regularise the status of some 30,000 foreign nationals who arrived legally in Portugal but do not have any authorisation to work. During the three years of recession which followed the financial crisis of 2011, more than 300,000 Portuguese left in search of a better standard of living, many of them young university graduates. 8

9 In 2017, Portugal registered a positive migration balance - the difference between those leaving and those entering the country - for the first time in six years, the National Statistics Institute said. LACK OF SKILLED LABOUR Last year, the Portuguese authorities issued 61,400 new residency permits, an increase of 31 per cent from 2016, which reflected a six per cent increase in the number of foreigners living in the country, a border police report said last week. The country has also experienced growth, thanks to a boom in tourism and foreign investment in property, but business leaders have warned that it could be easily reversed by the lack of skilled labour. The hard-won deal reached by EU member states on Friday states that migrants rescued at sea should be redistributed among the different member states - on a voluntary basis. Portugal is already part of a voluntary programme for the redistribution of refugees proposed in January by the European Commission which aims to resettle at least 50,000 refugees over the next two years. With their participation in an earlier programme, which ran from 2015 to March 2018, Portugal took in 1,552 refugees. However, only about half of those who entered Portugal stayed, with the rest leaving for countries offering better economic opportunities. 9

10 Singapore s immigration policy has led to problems such as job competition and Singaporeans losing their sense of identity. In your opinion, what can Singaporeans do to overcome the challenges they faced with the influx of immigrants coming to Singapore? GLOSSARY OF WORDS Marginalised refers to being of insignificance and pushed to the edge of society. Rhetoric refers to persuasive speaking or writing. Xenophobic refers to having or showing a dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries. Ghettoised refers to being put in or restricted to an isolated or segregated group or place. Sources: First Article: Second Article: