Urban Poverty, Spatial Representation and Mobility: Touring a Slum in Mexico

Dürr, Eveline (2012): Urban Poverty, Spatial Representation and Mobility: Touring a Slum in Mexico. In: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Bd. 36, Nr. 4: S. 706-724

Abstract

This article draws attention to a controversial activity in poor urban neighborhoods. Slum tourism is a growing business worldwide and simultaneously it is a new form of encounter between the global South and the global North. Following the new mobilities paradigm, I investigate a particular form of slum tourism, which intertwines urban poverty and charity, representation and powerful imaginaries, tourist mobility and transnational lifestyles. This is the case in Mazatlan, Mexico, where a multidenominational church offers regular tours to the city's garbage dump. I scrutinize the various modes of (im)mobilities and their implications for peoples and places, interconnecting spheres which are conceived of as separate. In conclusion, I outline the ambiguous effects when marginalized spaces become integral parts of the urban representation.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Keywords: Mexico;mobility;slums;tourism
• Fakultät: Kulturwissenschaften > Department für Kulturwissenschaften und Altertumskunde > Ethnologie
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 300 Sozialwissenschaft, Soziologie
• ISSN: 0309-1317
• Sprache: Englisch