Slumming the Global North? Überlegungen zur organisierten Besichtigung gesellschaftlicher Problemlagen in den Metropolen des Globalen Nordens

This paper explores the phenomena of guided walking tours through Berlin-Neukölln. a neighborhood that is marked in public discourses with problems like poverty, unemployment, crime and the failed integration of migrants. At first glance, this appears strange because it challenges ideas of tourism as a form of relaxation and recreation. Therefore, instead of defining this phenomena as a tourist one beforehand, this contribution aims at reconstructing those connotations which are constitutive for the practice of sightseeing Neukölln. The paper presents the results of an empirical case study and focuses on the walking tours provided by kulturbewegt e. V. The analysis reveals, that these walking tours are situated in a logic of an organisation, which, in order to maintain it‘s own structures, refers to and derives it‘s legitimacy from the context of social work. The socio-educational orientation is displayed in two ways: on the one hand in the qualification of women with migration background as tour guides; on the other hand in the walking tours public education work, which aims at changing the visitors negative perception of Neukölln and it‘s inhabitants. The purpose of the guided walking tours is thus primarily that of increasing the Neukölln‘s inhabitants chances of participation in society. The organisation realizes this purpose by educating inhabitants as well as visitors and therefore makes use of the specific form of walking tours.