The authentic slum or former street children as prisms of authenticity?

Edward Bruner's dismissal of authenticity is somewhat problematic when analysing forms of tourism whose marketing explicitly play on constructions of authenticity. The chapter shows that while tropes of staged authenticity circulate at one level, the slum might also be valorised by tourists in relation to, say, the desire for a space of leisure, marked by comfort, safety and affordability. If the visitors indeed saw the streets of Pahar Ganj through the eyes of what they believed was an authentic former street child, it would have to be in anticipation of the personal story that was narrated after the CW had in fact taken place. In the absence of an actual, authentic slum post 2010, the guides-as-former-street-children are positioned as prisms of authenticity, through which the topos of Pahar Ganj is refracted, both as a staged backstage and a touristic borderzone imbued with a culture of informal urbanism that tourists can immerse themselves in for a time.