Fabian Frenzel

Slum Tourism: Developments in a Young Field of Interdisciplinary Tourism Research

Abstract This paper introduces the Special Issue on slum tourism with a reflection on the state of the art on this new area of tourism research. After a review of the literature we discuss the breadth of research that was presented at the conference ‘Destination Slum’, the first international conference on slum tourism. Identifying various dimensions, as well as similarities and differences, in slum tourism in different parts of the world, we contest that slum tourism has evolved from being practised at only a limited number of places into a truly global phenomenon which now is performed on five continents. Equally the variety of services and ways in which tourists visit the slums has increased. The widening scope and diversity of slum tourism is clearly reflected in the variety of papers presented at the conference and in this Special Issue. Whilst academic discussion on the theme is evolving rapidly, slum tourism is still a relatively young area of research. Most papers at the conference and, indeed, most slum tourism research as a whole appears to remain focused on understanding issues of representation, often concentrating on a reflection of slum tourists rather than tourism. Aspects, such as the position of local people, remain underexposed as well as empirical work on the actual practice of slum tourism. To address these issues, we set out a research agenda in the final part of the article with potential avenues for future research to further the knowledge on slum tourism.

Protest camps: An emerging field of social movement research

Recently protest camps have emerged around the world as a highly visible form of protest. Part and parcel of new social movement activism for over 40 years, they are important sites and catalysts for identity creation, expression, political contention and incubators for social change. While research has punctually addressed individual camps, there is lack of comparative and comprehensive research that links historic and contemporary protest camps as a unique area of interdisciplinary study. Research on the phenomenon to date has remained punctual and case based. This paper proposes to study protest camps as a distinct new field of research in social movement studies. Existing literature is critically reviewed and framed in three thematic clusters of spatiality, affect and autonomy. On the basis of this review the paper develops a research approach based on the analysis of infrastructures used to make protest camps. We contest that an infrastructural analysis highlights protest camps as a unique organizational form and transcends the limits of case-based research while respecting the varying contexts and trajectories of protest camps.

Slum tourism: state of the art.

This article provides a view on the state-of-the-art literature on slum tourism. It points to the rapid growth of slum tourism research in recent years and highlights the main avenues that research has thus far explored in areas such as slum tourism history, slum tourist subjectivity, resident perspectives, slum tourism operations, economics, and mobilities. With the advent of slum tourism the relationship of poverty and tourism has changed. Tourism is no longer only a means to fight poverty, but poverty is an attraction of tourism. This has consequences for the relationship of slum tourism to other forms of tourism where poverty functions as an attraction, like volunteer or developmental tourism. The article identifies research gaps as well as avenues for further research.

Entlegene Orte in der Mitte der Gesellschaft

In Grosbritannien konstituiert sich die Klimaschutzbewegung jeneits von NGOs beinahe ausschliesslich in der Protestform des Camps. Seit dem ersten Klimacamp im Sommer 2006 in der Naehe eines der grosten britischen Kohlekraftwerke in Yorkshire haben in Grosbritannien jahrlich weitere Klimacamps stattgefunden. Das Modell ist auch zu einem Exportschlager geworden. Weltweit haben allein im Jahr 2009 19 Klimacamps stattgefunden. In diesem Artikel wird die Geschichte der britischen Klimacamps vor dem Hintergrund ihrer erfolgreichen Entwicklung und Verbreitung diskutiert. Im besonderen wird aufgezeigt, dass die britischen Klimacamps in der 30-jahrigen Tradition des Protest-Campings in Grosbritannien stehen. Die Entwicklung der Protestform des Campings steht in engem Zusammenhang mit gegenkulturellen sowie den Neuen Sozialen Bewegungen. Protestcamps werden daruber hinaus durch neue Mobilitats- und Kommunkationsformen begunstigt. Als Protestform bringen sie spezifische Vorteile aber auch Nachteile mit sich. Anhand der Beispiele der Klimacamps von 2006 bis 2009 in Grosbritannien wird insbesondere aufgezeigt, wie eine Professionalisierung der Protestformen des Campings in der Entwicklung der Klimacamps stattgefunden hat. Diese Professionalisierung zeigt sich insbesondere in drei Aspekten des Verhaltnisses des Camps zu seiner Umgebung, namlich im Hinblick auf den Umgang mit den Medien, den Umgang mit den geographischen und politischen Nachbarn und im Hinblick auf die Gestaltung des Camps als Konsum- und Freizeitraum.

Towards a Method for studying Affect in (micro)Politics: The Campfire Chats Project and the Occupy Movement

In their introduction to A Postcapitalist Politics, J.K. Gibson-Graham quotes artistactivist John Jordan stating, ‘When we are asked how we are going to build a new world, our answer is, “We don’t know, but let’s build it together”’. This ethos of building together underlies the micropolitics of protest camps in which people must not only work, but also live together as they struggle toward a common goal. In relation to theorizations of affect, what differentiates the protest camp from other place-based or space-based social movement gatherings and actions is the sustained physical and emotional labour that goes into building and maintaining the site as simultaneously a base for political action and a space for daily life. At a protest camp people’s perspectives toward others, as well as towards objects and ideas, are largely shaped through communal efforts to create sustainable (if ephemeral) infrastructures for daily life. Camps are frequently home to infrastructures such as DIY sanitation systems, communal kitchens, educational spaces, cultural festivals and performances, as well as media, legal and medical operations.

Protest Camps and Repertoires of Contention

Protest camps have become a prominent feature of the post-2010 cycle of social movements and while they have gripped the public and medias imagination, the phenomenon of protest camping is not new. The practice and performance of creating protest camps has a rich history, which has evolved through multiple movements, from Anti-Apartheid to Anti-war. However, until recently, the history of the protest camp as part of the repertoire of social movements and as a site for the evolution of a social movements repertoire has largely been confined to the histories of individual movements. Consequently, connections between movements, between camps and the significance of the protest camp itself have been overlooked. In this research profile, we argue for the importance of studying protest camps in relation to social movements and the evolution of repertoires noting how protest camps adapt infrastructures and practices from tent cities, festival cultures, squatting communities and land-based autonomous movements. We also acknowledge protest camps as key sites in which a variety of repertoires of contention are developed, tried and tested, diffused or sometimes dismissed. To facilitate the study protest camps we suggest a theory and practice of ‘infrastructural analysis’ and differentiated between four protest camp infrastructures: (1) media & communication, (2) action, (3) governance and (4) re-creation. We then use the infrastructures of media and communications as a brief example as to how our proposed infrastructural analysis can contribute to the study of repertoires and our understanding of the rich dynamics of a protest camp.

Value struggles in the creative city: A People’s Republic of Stokes Croft?

In this paper we explore the case of Stokes Croft, Bristol, UK, as a neighbourhood in a city which has appropriated the discourse of the creative industries from the bottom up in order to foster its regeneration against capital’s art of rent. We show how Stokes Croft’s self-branding as a cultural quarter has led to struggles over the creative and cultural commons thus produced, which we conceptualise as value struggles where localised value practices clash with capital’s imposition of value. Our case study including two vignettes points both to the productivity of such value struggles in producing new value practices understood as commoning, as well as the limits of reproducing a common life in the face of existing financial and property regimes. Stokes Croft therefore serves as a case in point of the tragedy of the urban commons and points to potential ways of overcoming it.

Globalization from below? ICTs and Democratic Development in the Project “Indymedia Africa”

Indymedia Africa (IMCA) is a global network of media activists that aims to both connect and foster the use of Independent Media in Africa. Originating in the digital age activism of the late nineties, the Indymedia network has been surfing a wave of optimism regarding the potentials of new media and the digital public sphere to democratize publishing and the media. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) were understood as permitting “convergence” between people and movements in a horizontally organized fashion, thereby facilitating desired organizational cultures based on consensus and plurality, and producing “open spaces” relatively unstructured and uncontrolled by conventional political and economic structures. As an element of a “globalization from below,” IMCA considered these ideas as an answer to problems of democracy and freedom of expression in Africa and attempted to spread its own organizational principles into African independent media. In four years of creating virtual and physical convergence spaces, online forums, and Web sites, as well as organizing transnational gatherings, however, the IMCA network has had to face something of a reality check regarding the conditions of its own work and the African context. It has also gone through a process of action and reflection that appears symptomatic for a variety of initiatives of global cooperation in the field of new media, highlighting the limits of technological and pragmatic answers to the debate of the democratic potentials of these media.

Observations on slums and their touristification

This special issue intends to open a discussion about the different ways in which slums become an object of observation. To start, this introduction discusses three communication contexts in which slums have been observed: in the academic debate, in global and urban policy, in popular culture. A sensitivity for these different perspectives matters when investigating the observations on slums that take place in the context of slum tourism. In this tourist practice, selected aspects of slum observations from the three communicative contexts are assembled to create the – at first sight – unlikely tourist destination of the slum. The process of this assembly is one of the key objects of study in the emerging field of slum tourism research. In this opening reflection, we firstly aim to briefly outline the ways in which the slum is observed and constructed in the aforementioned communicative contexts. Then, we want to look more specifically at some forms in which slum tourism potentially adds a new dimension to the ways we speak about and see slums. We end this introduction by briefly presenting the current state of research and by assessing how the contributions to this special issue attempt to advance our understanding of slum tourism. Observing slums

Tourism and informal encounters in Cuba

approaches and methodological considerations. These two chapters are concerned with exploring and understand usage, and offer a typology of guidebook users. Chapter 8 is especially important and offer valuable practical insight for the guidebook publishers to consider. Four case studies on Melbourne, Copenhagen, Bali and Fiji are presented in Chapter 9 with a discussion of ‘trust’ at the end of the chapter. This is difficult to measure because guidebooks are unique to each destination and while authors are experts, may they be locals or very familiar with the destination, the element of trust and usefulness may greatly differ by destination – I have certainly experienced this from my own personal travels. As argued in Chapter 10, there are three assumptions of guidebooks and destination development. This is where looking at the influence of guidebooks over time as detailed back in Chapter 3 is useful. Guidebooks have the power to influence and direct people to a new destination away from more popular destinations and attractions. Those writing have a unique view of a destination so they can make recommendations, but as discussed earlier in the book, the tourist needs to trust the recommendations and judgement of the author. Just as guidebooks can influence and direct us, they can lead to increased tourism and play a role in mass or cultural commodification. Chapter 11 focuses on the internet, and going beyond the blog to usergenerated content. User-generated content is a popular area of research and the end of this book leads readers in the direction of the importance of such contemporary research. The final chapter, Chapter 12, offers further conceptual directions and some critical directions for researchers interested in guidebooks. This area of research will benefits from interdisciplinary collaborations. There is much depth and understanding to gain not only in the field of tourism, but also from sociologists, social-psychologists, geographers and scholars in cultural studies and communications because guidebooks involve social interactions, influence, behaviour and place. I believe this book is most useful for academic researchers because it offers some critical directions and case studies. As mentioned, guidebook publishers would also benefit from insight presented.