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Dharavi, India Is the Real Slum Dogs Essay

Decent Essays

A. Ethnocentrism - The use of one’s own culture as a yardstick for judging the ways of other individuals or societies, generally leading to a negative evaluation of their values, norms, and behaviors.

Dharavi is the largest slum in the country of India. It is home to an estimated one million people, who all live within one square mile of its confines. This is approximately half the size of Central Park located in New York City, New York. Dharavi has one of the greatest population densities in the world. It is said to be six times greater than Manhattan, New York City. This fact ties into ethnocentrism because people who live outside of that society do not understand how someone would live in Dharavi by choice. For example, when …show more content…

There is only one toilet for 1400 residents, electricity is illegal, and fifteen families share only one tap that works for merely two hours in the day. Taking someone who is accustomed to living in a developed society and placing him/her in Dharavi to live, culture shock is almost guaranteed to occur. Westernized culture has made it essential to have electricity, accessible running and clean water, and in many cases, to even have a simple telephone. The people of Dharavi do not have these things. The things that other cultures see as fundamental are almost non-existent in Dharavi. In American culture, it is almost impossible to find someone without a cell phone. To leave that same person to live in a slum without any electricity or to work in unsanitary conditions would be considered inhumane. In America, the citizens take for granted having a bathroom with a door for privacy, but in Dharavi, one toilet is shared by too many to count. That alone would make someone from a westernized country look down there nose at this culture. In cultures where people hate to wait in line to use a public restroom, Dharavi would be deemed as an unfit place to live. Imagine it to be illegal to have electricity here in the United States, how many people would be unlawful citizens? When considering everything that the US citizens use for survival on the daily basis, almost everyone would be engaging in illegal activity. From

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