Multiple Choice City Quiz – Mumbai

Unfeatured....

It's a fairly common thing.

In Mumbai you can go on tours of Dharavi. In Cairo you can go on tours of Garbage City. In Cape Town you can go on tours of District 6 (the one that inspired the movie District 9). In Rio you can go on plenty of different tours of the various Favelas. And many, many more all over the world.

Depending on the tour, in many places the tours employ (and are sometimes organized by) residents of the slums themselves, as a way of bringing money back into the impoverished areas.

Are there weird ethical intersectionalities there? Of course. But would it be better for tourists to a city to just stick to the rich resorts and other areas and completely avoid engaging with this aspect of the city's reality? I don't know it's that clear cut. Like anything, it's really complicated.

I do know that when I went on a tour of District 6 (as a tourist) it gave me unexpected insights and was one of the most rewarding parts of my visit to Cape Town. 🤷‍♂️

yup, it is

Slumdog Millionaire brought Dharavi into the spotlight, and so people from wealthy Western countries tour places like Dharavi because they are curious about how the poorest of Indian society live. It is messed up and feels a bit like a human zoo, no matter how common slum tours are in many countries with extreme inequalities.

I think it depends entirely on how the tour is presented and how the tourist approaches it. I went on a tour of the silver mines in Bolivia (not quite the same, I know) 14 years ago, and seeing how hard those guys have to work--under inhumane conditions, for seemingly days at a time, for very low wages--really made an impression on me and has stayed with me. It broadened my perspective, and I think it affects how I view labor and commodities to this day.

Gawking and snapping photos of people in their homes like they're a circus act? Gross. But quietly walking around and absorbing their reality and hopefully hearing some insightful information from someone who knows what they're talking about can be an important and transformative experience.

Without knowing anything about the actual tour, I feel confident it's much more likely to be crass and insulting than thoughtful and educational. I am just saying that, as a concept, a tour of an impoverished place *can* do a lot of good.