Slums on Show: Poverty and Violence as Spectacular Commodity

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel explores the commodification and aestheticization of poverty and violence in Latin American and Caribbean cities, focusing on "slum tourism". Such processes transform urban deprivation into a consumer product, in the context of shifts towards cultural economies of spectacle, gentrification and militarization of urban space. These processes raise questions concerning power and inequality, and specifically how the spatialization of class, gender, and race relations is being reshaped. The papers bring an ethnographic perspective to the slum as space of encounter between residents, informal intermediaries, and international cultural producers and consumers. Papers also focus on political economy of informal settlements.

Sub Track

• Mass Media and Popular Culture

Session Organizers

• Eveline Dürr, Ludwig-Maximilians-University

• Gareth Jones, London School of Economics and Political Science

Chair

• Gareth Jones, London School of Economics and Political Science

Individual Presentations

• Touring Tepito: Commodification of Violence and Poverty or Resistance? - Barbara Vodopivec, LMU Munich, Germany

• NGOs and the Creation of Poor/Risky but Safe Places for Tourists. The Case of ‘Destino Guatemala’ - Sarah J Becklake, Lancaster University

• Atis Rezistans and the Politics of Artistic Slum Tourism in Port-au-Prince - David Peter Frohnapfel

• Imaginary Tourisms: Aestheticizing Poverty and Violence in Trench Town, Jamaica - Alana D Osbourne, Universiteit van Amsterdam

• Meu Vizinho o Gringo: Outsider Hospitality and Gentrification in Favelas of Rio de Janeiro - Alessandro M Angelini, London School of Economics

Discussant

• Florence E Babb, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill