Potter’s new book explores how we’ve come to perceive what’s real. Knowing we can only look back for a greater understanding of the present, and maybe the future, Potter starts with Socrates and works up to now. Though it sprawls and meanders sometimes, this book is an effort to explain why we’re looking for what we want.

Potter weaves Descartes and Marx with Paris Hilton and Seinfeld, touching on personal identity, art, environmentalism, and consumer culture. He’s aware of the corruptions and costs of modern life, but rejecting society and all her comforts is not the answer, he concludes. Benedictine monk Dom Deschamps is quoted on his vision of “authentic” commune living without intellectuals: “no books, no writing, no art: all that would be burned.” Potter shoots back with a pop culture riposte: two cavemen in a New Yorker cartoon enjoy clean air, water, exercise, and organic food, “yet nobody lives past thirty.” Authenticity, it turns out, has its discontents.

Slumdog Millionaire Child star Azharuddin Ismail plays in his shanty on May 30, 2009 in Mumbai, India. Ismail's family faced evicition from their dwelling in spring 2009. Photo by Getty.

It can be an eye-opening experience that helps everyone involved move towards greater understanding….

It’s been happening in Rio’s famous favelas for some time. Now slum tourism—which turns a real-life ghetto into a “hot” tourist destination—has spread to Johannesburg, Manila, Cairo, and, in the wake of the blistering success of Slumdog Millionaire, Mumbai. But it’s controversial wherever it goes.

Shelley Seale, author of The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India, thinks slum tourism (also known as “poorism”) can be positive for both visitors and locals, but only if it’s done right. Seale toured the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, Asia’s largest slum and the setting for Slumdog, with Deepa Krishnan of Mumbai Magic, a socially responsible tour operator who donates a portion of her profits to local NGOs.

“Dharavi gave me a resounding rebuttal to the myth that poverty is the result of laziness,” Seale says. “I have never seen people work so hard. The place abounded with an industry and entrepreneurship such as I have not ever witnessed anywhere else. “It was an amazing experience, and I believe that things like this can do a lot to eradicate cultural bias and misunderstandings, and also the images of poverty that many of us have.”

…but it can also be exploitative and tarnishing to India’s global image

Indians tend to be very sensitive about their country’s identity. Many didn’t embrace the feel-goodism of Slumdog because they felt the film portrayed their country in a negative light, without offering explanations or solutions for the living conditions in the slum.

Likewise, Indian tourism professionals tend to be wary of slum tourism. They feel it can be exploitative, turning people’s lives into sideshow spectacle and obliterating both the slum dwellers’ humanity and the underlying issues, like India’s unrelenting rural to urban migration.

There are also justifiable concerns about who conducts the tours, and how. Ronjon Lahiri, director of India Tourism in Toronto, says that many of the so-called slum tourism operators are only looking to make a buck and don’t educate tourists on Dharavi and its residents.

He says that many people live there because Mumbai’s property prices are among the highest in the world. Even when residents make money, many don’t leave because Dharavi has become their home, their community.

For Lahiri, “Slum tourism is not to be encouraged. It is not good for India and not good for the people living there.”

The January-February 2010 issue of This is now in subscribers’ mailboxes and on newsstands coast to coast (for the first time ever, we’re also being sold this issue in 30 Canadian airports — let us know if you find us on the racks in your travels!). You’ll be able to read all the articles from this issue here on the website in the weeks ahead, but buying an issue from your friendly local independent bookstore is a great way to read the magazine. We also suggest subscribing to our RSS feed to ensure you never miss a new article going online, following us on Twitter or becoming a fan on Facebook for updates, new articles and other intertubes-related hijinks.

On the cover of the January-February 2010 issue is our special Olympics-related package of articles, bundled with love by Cate Simpson, Kim Hart Macneill, and Jasmine Rezaee, your complete rundown of 9.2 billion reasons to be flaming mad about the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. We’ve got an in-depth interview with Christopher Shaw, head of 2010 Watch, citizen watchdogs of the Games’ excesses, cost overruns, and civil liberties infringements; plus our look at the issues the Olympic fiasco is exacerbating, including aboriginal land claims, creative budgeting, sponsorships, medals, police tactics, and more.

Also featured in this issue is Lisan Jutras’ meditation on racism, as she examines her own biases and struggles to find a cure for her own prejudices, and finds that 12 steps may be just the beginning. And Amanda Cosco reports on Denis Rancourt, the University of Ottawa professor who tried to give all his students A+ in order to fight what he saw as an unhealthy obsession with marks and grades. Amid the controversy, there’s a serious discussion underway about radically rethinking how students learn.

There’s lots more, including Jason Anderson on Awards Season; Raina Delisle on B.C.’s pro-Olympic curriculum, and the parents and teachers who are fighting it; Bruce M. Hicks has a modest proposal for squaring the circle of Aboriginal government, by turning all Aboriginal lands across the country into an 11th province; Nick Taylor-Vaisey on the Canadian Forces Artist Program that embeds painters, choreographers, and writers with Canadian troops in conflict zones; Jasmine Rezaee on Canada’s deadly trade in Asbestos sales to the developing world; Mariellen Ward on Slumdog Millionaire and the boom in “slum tourism” worldwide; Paul McLaughlin interviews Inuk sealskin clothing designer, lawyer, and activist Aaju Peter; and Denis Calnan reports on the opening of a new school that is transforming Sheshatshiu, the 1990s byword for troubled Innu communities.

PLUS: Brad Badelt on Biochar, Kim Hart Macneill on Canada’s most shameful world records and a new graphic novel from an innovative Nova Scotia publisher; Nick Taylor-Vaisey on the problem with road salt; Chris Benjamin on midwifery; Daniel Tencer on Roman Polanski; Christopher Olson on the death of the obituary; Navneet Alang on how the mobile web is transforming urban life; Siena Anstis on a new generation of African computer hackers; Graham F. Scott on the opportunity cost of the Olympics; and your letters on our Legalize Everything package

With new poems by Jonathan Ball and Verne Good; and a new short story by Michelle Winters.