For my Politics of International Development class, we write a group blog here. Below is my recent post:
I was quite intrigued by David Bromley's piece that was part of the readings couple of weeks back, which was followed by the discussion in class. Bromley believes that its time we shift our attention away from the poor as “objects and subjects”.
I had read a little while back, how a very smart non-profit in Delhi, offers tourists a tour of the worst living conditions that street children face in the city. In one's trip to India, the itinerary now includes Agra, Goa, a trip down south to Kerala and finally trip to the slums of Delhi. Although, it sounds dehumanizing, to make the suffering of these children a 'tourist attraction', I saw a strange connection to Bromley's ideas.
There could be reasons why we are eager to study the poor, just like the tourists pay money to see the suffering. I'm guessing the below motivations should be true to both scholars and tourists, given that by the end of the day all of us are human:
I was quite intrigued by David Bromley's piece that was part of the readings couple of weeks back, which was followed by the discussion in class. Bromley believes that its time we shift our attention away from the poor as “objects and subjects”.
I had read a little while back, how a very smart non-profit in Delhi, offers tourists a tour of the worst living conditions that street children face in the city. In one's trip to India, the itinerary now includes Agra, Goa, a trip down south to Kerala and finally trip to the slums of Delhi. Although, it sounds dehumanizing, to make the suffering of these children a 'tourist attraction', I saw a strange connection to Bromley's ideas.
There could be reasons why we are eager to study the poor, just like the tourists pay money to see the suffering. I'm guessing the below motivations should be true to both scholars and tourists, given that by the end of the day all of us are human:
- Studying the poor enables us to appreciate what we have in our lives. Once these tourists get onto their flights back home, after exploring the painful condition, they can better appreciate their SUVs and the large-screen TVs. It may even help them find some meaning in their lives
- It enables them to sympathize. In many cases sympathy is mistaken for action. Thus, exploring the world of homeless kids in Delhi, taking a few pictures and handing out some candies may make them believe that they have done some good
- It enables us to create artifacts of suffering through pictures and videos. Can you ever imagine a international development site without the pictures of poor, homeless children, usually malnourished and shirtless. This also holds true for presentations, journals, books and funding proposals. Let’s say for a moment, we take Bromley’s advice quite seriously and focus our efforts on studying the elites and the institutions they create, which eventually leads to poverty. That would imply that we would have to replace the pictures of the poor with the boardroom of Goldman Sachs and the poor country elites, with their bungalows and expensive cars.
3 comments:
Thought provoking post. Everywhere people are taught only to see what benefits oneself than seeing what would benefit the other person :) Even in this scenario we are trying 2 learn things but not even a step ahead in the process of helping others.
//How are we any different from the tourists with their cameras?//
Spoke much than the whole post :) Nice post.
Gee...when you look at it that way, it sounds disgusting that poverty in India is showcased this way...
No wonder BBC, CNN etc have a very very dismal picture to portray when they feature India...
And while the rest of the world seems to think of it that way, ppl who are said to be making the country a better place proclaim India is Shining!!!
Subjects and objects - Why restrict it to poor??
From consumers to audiences everything is objectified, counted and researched. The focus indeed is the rich elitist class for all media and consumerist society study and analysis.
Why bother for the 15 minutes of fame that poor have? Who knows just might move someone , somewhere.
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