Ethics and Tourism

In just a few weeks, I’ll be heading off on a big trip that will include two weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia.  Of course, as a prawf, I’m incapable of simply planning an enjoying a trip to new and exciting places.  Instead, I find myself fretting over the various ethical considerations involved in visiting developing nations.  More on this after the jump.

I trace much of my uneasiness to a trip I took to Bosnia in 2006.  I went to Sarajevo that year to visit a Bosnian woman I had befriended while studying in Germany.  I had always wanted to visit the former Yugoslavia, and having a local friend to host me seemed like a perfect opportunity. 

Of course, as an American, almost all of what I knew about Bosnia had to do with the recent wars, with a little bit of Marshal Tito and the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand thrown in.  Nevertheless, I was determined to show my friend and her family and peers that I was interested in Bosnia for its own sake, and that I had not come to voyeuristically experience a recent war zone or to gawk at poverty.  I was acutely aware of the fact that men and women who were my peers had lived through an unimaginably horrific war.  I recall being deeply ashamed when my friend’s sister asked what it was like to be in New York on 9/11, as if my story of temporary displacement could ever compare to what it must have been like to be a teenager in 1990s Sarajevo.

With that uneasiness in mind, I set out with my camera and my journal to document a country that could have been captioned “Bosnia: Not a Warzone!”  I snapped pictures of the gorgeous mountains, of the charming Turkish quarter and the stately Austrian quarter in Sarajevo, of the new bridge and beautiful hillside houses in Mostar, and of the almost comical “ruins” of an ancient “pyramid” of dubious provenance.  I chronicled my adventures eating cevapi on the most delicious fresh bread I have ever tasted, and enjoying an afternoon coffee in a perfectly landscaped Sarajevo square. 

But there were many things that I took fewer pictures of, namely, the bombed out buildings, large cemeteries with too many recent graves, the countless- street-side memorials to urban terrorist attacks, and the appalling interior condition of even “luxury” high-rise apartment buildings.  I came back brimming with stories about the warmth and hospitality of the people I met, but was much less forthcoming about some of the daily hardships that I saw them face.

In the years since I visited Bosnia, I have travelled to several other developing countries, each time with an uneasy sense that the poverty and suffering of others is not there for my entertainment or “cultural experience,” but that ignoring this aspect of life would be to leave without a complete sense of the land I have visited.

So, on this trip, I hope to achieve as much balance as possible.  Will I see the Vietnam of napalm, of My Lai, and the Cu-Chi tunnels?  Or the Vietnam of a rich history that is so much more than colonial occupation and resistance.  Will I allow myself to see the Cambodia killing fields, or confine myself to the tourist haven of Angkor Wat?  Will I marvel at economic revival in Vietnam or allow myself to confront the reality of continued poverty in developing nations?

Tell me, Prawfs readers: which trip is most respectful to myself and to the nations I am visiting?  Is there any way to experience the reality of war or poverty without being exploitative, condescending, or voyeuristic?