Poorism: A preservation or commodification of culture?
An increasing number of tourists are visiting the poorest areas of different countries to experience how the other “five-sixths” of the world lives. The idea has come to be known as poorism and experts believe that it is not much more than just an excursion people take to see how poor the poor in other countries really are. However, there are people who seek out poverty in their travels so that they can help the locals by putting some cash in their hands, by buying their hand made products.
Unfortunately, these products are often not a traditional part of the culture of certain countries, but the locals produce new products that they know the tourists will buy. In Rwanada, Jeanne d’Arc Mukamurigo and her daughter weave bamboo into placemats, and although these placemats are not traditionally Rwandan, they know that the tourists will buy them. Therefore, locals are changing their traditions in order to supply the tourists with certain products.
Tourists also visit poor countries because “the economic poor are often culturally rich” and people seek what they feel they lack in their own countries. The townships of South Africa are some of the most popular destinations of poverty tourism in the world and tourists go there to get a sense of the devastation that apartheid left behind.
On the immediate side of things, poverty tourism helps those who live with next to nothing to make some extra money by selling their products to the tourists. However, the locals in poverty stricken areas are changing and commodifying their traditions so that they can sell to the tourists.
The Christian Science Monitor. June 29, 2009
Very interesting contrast of necessity and change. It seems as if toursists travel there to see what the real culture is like, but as they do more and more then the people who live there change themselves to accommodate to what they think the tourists will like. It is a sad thing to see culture change and it might pause their culture in time. However, it does bring in income to the local economy, so it can't be all bad.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how tourist are now helping third world countries but really how much can they actually. I mean these countries are probably getting more help from people who actively donate to these countries. Tourism helps but it still doesn't bring a lot of the citizens of these countries out of poverty.
ReplyDelete