Calling Poverty Tourism by its true name

Photo from The Mindful Tourist

With the popularity of Slumdog Millionaire, we began to see more and more articles about poverty or slum tourism.

Since it left a bad taste in our mouth, we did a little research here and there but couldn’t bring ourselves to write a post about it…until now.

Hannah Rubenstein’s blog on Poverty Tourism (or “poorism,” yuck!) raises many interesting and important questions.  Hannah lived in Nicaragua recently and at one point was asked to take a group of American tourists to a nearby village, show them one of the typical houses, while introducing the large family that shared the one-room house to the tourist group.  It sounds like it was an awkward few minutes for several reasons…

Continue reading this article @ The Mindful Tourist

Further information:

• Voyeurism Or Tourism?: Globetrotters In Harlem
• Voyeurism Or Tourism?