Don't get me wrong - I love travelling. I love immersing myself in the different and mysterious, dipping my toes into waters so unfamiliar they are almost incomprehensible.
And this has taken me to places which the western world labels as 'poor.' Let's get the definition out of the way first: by 'poor' I mean not only people who don't have enough to eat, or shoes for their feet, but also access to education and basic health care (such as antibiotics) that can keep them alive in an emergency.
Poverty is not a lifestyle choice. Poor people do not walk without shoes because they have some romantic notion about being in contact with the earth. They do not eat insects with any ethical objection to a side of beef. Nor does poverty prevent them being creative, kind, intelligent people - and many have welcomed me into their homes with a generosity that is truly humbling.
But - having returned from Cuba, where I was more aware of tour groups than in any other country I've visited, I am beginning to question the ethics of tourist interactions with local people when those people are truly poor.
I've watched as tour groups peered through doorways where a mother was breastfeeding her baby, a pot boiling on a small fire in the corner and bed roll stacked in the corner. I've watched as tour groups go into orphanages and gawp at classrooms and dormitories, and applaud as the children sing their little songs. In Cuba I visited a cigar factory (as many tourists do) and saw rows of men and women sorting leaves, rolling cigars, the air thick with tobacco dust. I was not allowed to speak to them - they had work to do. They performed for me, with less enthusiasm than an animal in a circus.
I like to think I'm a traveller and not a tourist. That I don't come to observe but to engage with people on a more meaningful level - a level on which we can learn from each other.
But as I begin to wonder where to go next, it occurs to me that my sort of travelling is getting more difficult. The big tour companies promise luxuries; they ferry groups from one site to another; and the travel agencies in poor countries - understandably - respond by providing just that. The wealthy and well-shod are taken from village to school to factory where they nod and maybe leave a tip or two but come away with nothing more than a little dust on their shoes.
And the people they visit - where is their dignity? They are paraded because they are poor. That they are also men, women and children with dreams is irrelevant.
Do the tourists see these poor people as actual human beings or do they think that they are just part of the scenery? I know that it would make me feel uncomfortable ( I am a bit of an ostrich) to see such poverty, but what would happen to these people if the tourists stopped visiting? Very thought provoking - but lovely post!
ReplyDeleteThank you - I'm not sure there's a right answer. Tourists bring money that poor people need, but 'earning' that money dehumanises them.
DeleteI have been on many factory tours in the UK and I don't think anybody working in those factories was bothered that I was interested in what they were doing. I have hosted many tours of the building sites where I worked and it always gave me satisfaction and enjoyment to show off what we do. I know there was no poverty involved but I cannot see it is very different. How do you think poor people feel about the well shod tourist taking an interest in their lives? Do tourists gawk at the poor because they are poor or because they are different? Do the poor feel ashamed of their poverty? Do the tourists feel superior? Peering in somebodies home is rude and I can see why that would make you feel uncomfortable but I don't know about the rest. I wasn't there but think that most of the things you describe would be of interest to me not because of the poverty but because of the difference which is surely what travelling is all about. Does an interest in people's lives dehumanise them? Maybe, as a tourist, you get only a glimpse of a life rather than the fuller picture that you might get as a traveller but I do not think it less valuable or more dehumanising for that and i don't believe the lives you glimpse begrudge you that.
ReplyDeleteI think it's complicated, Mark. Like you, I'm interested in difference, and want to find ways to understand and celebrate that.
DeleteBut tourism in developing countries feels, to me, as if it's underlining the 'us and themness' of the experience rather than trying to build any bridges. I stayed in local homes, and then felt fine. But the cigar factory didn't - I wondered how much choice those workers had.
Do the people begrudge my glimpses into their lives - I'll never know. But I did meet tourists who thought it was quaint to run around without shoes, and that troubles me.
A lot, and I mean a lot! to think about in your post. As someone who was born on that "other side" I didn't mind at first the way I was seen by tourists. We didn't have that many anyway, back in the day when the USSR ruled us. The majority were from ex-socialist coutnries. The few ones from "enemy territories" were kept as far away as possible from the real Cuba. As I grew older and became a free-lancer (translation, interpreting and teaching Spanish) I became more aware of what you call "poverty porn". Sadly I felt this more from those who pretended to be our friends, i.e., leftwingers than from those I had always abhoreed, rightwingers. With lefties I always felt and still feel condescended to. To me, if you go to another coutnry as a tourist yo uhaev earned that right through your work and saving money. I don't expect much of these people and in fact I sold them holidays for more than five years here in the UK. Once you go otuside that tourist remit I expect more of that person. I expect a better level of understanding, should they sport political views which they are looking to justify by travelling to my coutnry, I expect them to experience the real Cuba in order to have a more solid basis for their opinions. Unfortunately that's not always the case, in fact, well-informed people on Cuba are a rarity not the norm.
ReplyDeleteYour post is very sincere and honest. Thanks.
Have a nice weekend.
Thank you for this. I tried, honestly I tried, to get close to the 'real Cuba' - and I did meet some great people. But I also watched tour groups look at the country rather than try to engage with it - that's what made me uncomfortable. On the other hand they bring money - and how Cuba needs that.
DeleteI don't have an answer, just a lot of questions.
I'm really sorry about my typos. I just re-read my response and I feel ashamed! :-)
DeleteGreetings from London.
Typos rock!! You write thoughtfully - that's worth far more than the occasional speeling mistaek.
DeleteThat's a hard one, Jo. I know they do tours around Soweto and the townships around Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban in South africa. I personally find it abhorrent - and would not do it. I feel much as you do about what it must seem to them. Peering at them from the luxury of our affluence. But then I would never go to those townships alone either. It isn't safe to do so. So I would never know how they lived if I hadn't lived much closer to the poorer people when I lived on the farm in South Africa. There we all lived together, pretty much. However, I may be projecting my own feelings. I don't know. I do know that I find the idea of groups of people being 'shown' around such factories, farms and dwellings does not fit with my own feelings of what is dignified for them, but as you say, the tourists bring in money, so….I don't know. What I am sure of is that I would hate that kind of touring anyway being something of a loner myself.
ReplyDeleteJust by way of a PS, I am obviously not living in poverty, but we do get treated as tourist exhibits here on our old barges in Rotterdam. It is a very odd feeling being viewed as a museum piece by large groups of people descending from huge tour buses. The clicking of the cameras is very unnerving, so in that sense, I have some experience of being an object on display! You've given me an idea for my next post...
DeleteI also live in a town full of tourists. They bring money and I always direct them to the independent coffee shops. And they don't hang around, so it's fine.
DeleteBut I have shoes on my feet. Would I feel differently if I hadn't chosen to be here but was simply an example of a way of life I couldn't escape?
Such an interesting post, Jo, with a lot to think about. A couple years ago I was in the Dominican Republic, and a school was on the tour list but that was because they wanted to get information out about how they needed help. And the tour I was on was a group who had helped them, and the kids said thank you. Also as part of the tour was a family's small home with a farm. We were told they helped support themselves by being part of the tour, and also we were asked to be respectful as we walked through the rooms of their 4 room house. I don't know if this family was poor, because everything was clean and organized and well-kept. They also sold products from their farm to the tour groups. In both instances here, all groups benefited from the tourism-- the tourists who were able to learn and to serve, and to buy some amazing products from this family farm, as well as the native people who had opened their school and homes for the tour groups. Many of these countries are dependent on tourism as part of their economies-- it provides jobs and opportunities like any industry does.
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comment, Karen. I don't think poverty has anything to do with being clean and well-kept. It's about lack of choices - lack of access to health and education, of access to anything that makes it possible to live life differently.
DeleteI've also stayed in people's homes - and been made very welcome. But there's something about 'poverty tourism' that is beginning to make me very uncomfortable.
I suppose some of them will object but my feeling is that if I were in that position I'd be all for it, because at least it opens the chance to make some kind of a change in my life. I would object however to visiting a place where the people weren't allowed to speak. This is less about having a job to do IMHO than in stopping them complaining about their shite working conditions and the problems with the employer who is parading them. this was the case in I think it was Burma a few years ago when certain ethnic minorities were kicked out of their homes and more pictureque ones installed in their place. It's also becoming a real problem in orphanages. I am a member of Tourism Concern - have you heard of it? It's well worth supporting and deals with these issues and can also always do with publicity.
ReplyDelete,
I think that tourists can actually do something constructive when they don't like the way people are being treated. The more openness the better. I agree that just shuffling around to gawp is horrid, a bit like going to Bedlam in the 18th century.
Many thanks for pointing me in the direction of Tourism Concern - I'll check it out. I agree that tourists can have much to contribute - but it's the gawping without thinking that bothers me.
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