I’ve been meaning to post on this. Kennedy Odede, one of our majors, was recently published in the New York Times on the subject of “Slumdog Tourism”. It is definitely worth a read, especially if you are a Westerner considering a trip to a developing country. See it as an opportunity to reflect on what it means to travel and interact with people who live under such drastically different conditions. What Kennedy does here is try to have us see and feel the experience of being observed by such a tourist.

I notice Chris Blattman has a few posts on the subject of development, or poverty, tourism. Besides the New York Times, which has covered the issue a couple times, the Christian Science Monitor, also had a nice story a year ago.