Experience and Representation

News of this "experience" stunned me. The picture to the left is from William Easterly's invitation to a refugee experience at Davos.

This is his scanned invitation; you can read his analysis at the link above.

The text reads: "refugee run. Invitation to an event you will never forget. Experience life as a refugee in Davos. During this year's Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, we would like to invite you to an experience unlike any other on the agenda: an opportunity to step into the world of conflict and experience life as a refugee.

Just five minutes' walk from the Congress Centre, you can enter a simulated environment that will thrust you into a war zone. You will meet a rebel attack, navigate a minefield, and battle life in a refugee camp. (Spoiler alert: No harm will come to you!)

A debrief will follow in which you will discuss your experience. The issue of people on the move, whether through conflict or environmental causes, is a major challenge not only for our world today, but as well tomorrow. It is of particular interest to those embracing Corporate Social Responsibility, public/private partnerships and sustainable solutions to global challenges.

This "refugee run" is an experience regularly run among CEO's and other business leaders. It has proven very popular because it takes people well beyond the reach of a speech or "break out" session into actual "experience" of the issue. It will be an experience you will find impossible to forget.

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Oh. Indeed? OK. Granted, some of the oddities and insulting nature of this text has to do with the non-native use of English. Regardless of language, however, you have to wonder how the usually spot on people at UNHCR got this idea. What an incredibly insulting, feckless, irresponsible, rude, offensive idea. Unbelievable!

There is absolutely nothing that the rich CEO's at Davos could learn from a simulation that would enable them to, even for a moment, understand the reality of life as a refugee. They might learn what it feels like to piss in the ground because your toilet is unavailable, but that doesn't teach them what it feels like not to have a toilet because you are miles from a home that no longer exists, in a village destroyed, away from your friends and family -- some of whom are probably dead, but you don't know that -- with no discernible means of altering your circumstances: you ran out of food and water days ago and the shooting in the distance suggests to you that no food delivery will be happening for a while. Nothing about navigating a simulated minefield in the safe space of Davos teaches you for seeing your child blown up as he/she runs towards you or for having to cross that minefield in order to escape the certain death of an approaching militia... Unbelievable.

The logic error that enables this misguided tourist theme park also lies behind the disability simulation. Quite simply put, I am not against someone experiencing how it is to move around without having one's customary access to one's vision. I think that it is a worthwhile experience. I think it is equally worthwhile seeing what you can see and feel if you use a wheelchair. But none of those fleeting experiences teach you what it means or feels like to lived disabled. This is a simple question of the distinction between experience and representation.

While Neil Marcus has often spoken of disability as a different country, there is no excuse for the Davos folk to be offering tours in refugee land. Tourism, a privilege that all too frequently disrupts our understanding of the line between seeing and exploiting, only reinforces the distance between the local and the tourist. You know what I mean? You go to the beach, you wonder, wistfully, what it would be like to live here full time, and in that moment, the moment of your most intense desire for similarity, the distance between you and the local is maximized. You don't live there; you only want to and you recognize all the reasons that you (usually) can't.

But in this case, no one wants to. No one wants to live like a refugee by choice. This invitation treats elements of a refugee's life as a Disney experience: a wonder world to which you can never return and will never forget. Bank that one, billionaire attendee.