Trade justice activism is messy, uncertain, nonlinear, all over the place, inspiring, worrying, powerful.
On followthethings.com âshoppingâ has an important double meaning.
On the one hand, it means âto seek or examine goods, property, etc. offered for saleâ.
On the other hand, it means âto behave treacherously toward; inform on; betrayâ or âto give away information aboutâ those goods, property, etc.
Anyone who makes trade justice activism, and anyone who visits this site, is a âshopperâ.
"Whoever said money can't buy happiness, simply didn't know where to go shopping" - Bo Derek.
followthethings.com encourages another kind of shopping.
“Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork“ A documentary film dirercted by Eyal Sivan for Trabelsi Productions. Trailer embedded above, search online for streaming options here.
Imagine visiting your local supermarket and popping a bag of Jaffa branded oranges in your basket. Then imagine browsing your favourite news site on your phone in the checkout queue and reading the latest story about deaths in Gaza, war in the Middle East. Maybe youâve read a lot about this conflict, or have some first hand experience. But news stories donât tend to explain its background, how and why it began. That bag of oranges â and this documentary film â can help to do this. Jaffa is an ancient Palestinian city. Itâs also where Jaffa-branded oranges have been grown by Arab and Jewish people since the 1800s. Once picked, they would wrap each individual fruit in tissue paper, pack them into wooden boxes, load them onto boats and ship them wordwide. A year after the birth of âpractical photographyâ in 1839, Palestinian photographer Khalil Khaed visited Jaffa to document everyday life and work, including in its orange groves. Photographers, filmmakers, artists and advertisiers have documented the connection between Jaffa and oranges ever since. But, as the Israeli state began to take shape in the 20th Century, this film argues that there was a concerted attempt to remove Palestine from Jaffa oranges and to rebrand them as emblems of Israeli civilisation. It’s settler Colonialism 101. To piece this history together, Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan spent five years sifting through numerous archives for Jaffa-orange photos, films, advertising and resistance. He showed what he found to Israeli and Palestinian people- academics, poets, retired orange workers, advertising executives, others â and filmed their reactions. What he created from this footage is â many have said â a profoundly insightful and moving documentary. It has generated considerable critical and public acclaim from audiences around the world. First screened in 2009, it is still a go-to documentary to spark debate about the Palestine-Israel conflict today. And Sivan continues to attend screenings to answer questions about the film and the futures that might be possible in the region. Sivanâs politics, and films, are anti-Zionist. He has struggled to raise funding and to gain screening opportunities in Israel. He and his films have generated criticisms of anti-semitism. But the main argument in ‘Jaffa, The Orangeâs Clockwork’ is that, if Arab and Jewish people were able to work together harmoniously in the past â like they did in Jaffaâs orange groves â they can do so in the future. You have to see this to believe this. Why not watch the film? Read the comments below. See what you think. We’ve tried to captire all of the discusion we’ve found online.
Page reference: Lucian Harford (2025) Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork. followthethings.com/jaffa-the-oranges-clockwork.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)
Girl model Mangetout The ginger trail Ghosts Primark – on the rack
INGREDIENTS
INTENTIONS
Pop the bubble Cross cultures Tell the truth Show capitalist evils End violence & exploitation Change corporate behaviour Teach economic geography
TACTICS
Have a theory of change Target the right brand Follow the thing Tell the truth Tell a story Include emotion Encourage empathy Find & give inspiration Workers take the mic! Find a character Create a character Bring managers into view Show the violence Include suffering kids Juxtapose extremes Blame, shame & guilt Encourage feminist solidarities Add mood music Silence your critics
RESPONSES
This is so sad This is disgusting I’m so angry I just cried These consumers are insane Capitalism is sh*t These people are inspiring This gives me hope I want to find out more
IMPACTS
Now I know! Now we’re talking Activism is publicised Activism is inspired Debts are paid off Governments intervene Corporations change
“Choose the emotion that wonât let go – then hit ‘record’“
By Luke Elkington
IN BRIEF
Student Luke Elkington has taken the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module at the University of Exeter. He’s been watching trade justice documentaries, analysing the comments on their followthethings.com pages, and making sense of them using a draft copy of ‘The followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’. He knows a thing or two about how trade justice documentaries work and what they can do. He’s been asked to imagine meeting a filmmaker who’s planning a new trade justice documentary. What advice could he give? Get inspired by the films he’s watched, and get the emotions right. Then record.
More about this page.
We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called The ginger trail). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?
Question
How can I make an effective trade justice documentary?
Answer
First things first, cos youâre making a trade justice documentary, your film must contribute to the Trade Justice Movement â or TJM. But what does that even mean?!?!? The TJM challenges unfair imbalances in power between trading nations by tearing up the rule book âđ˝ and the goal is to create a global system which prioritizes the people đŠđťâđ¤âđŠđž and the planet đ (Bannister & Bergan, 2023). So, to be a trade justice documentary, your activism must try to shift power away from the capitalist class đż and toward supply chain workers đ¤ (Wright, 2015). Easy right ?
Screenshot fromthe Handbook.
Now, for your film to be effective, its intentions must lead to real-world impact. To generate the greatest impact, I suggest having a theory of change đ¤ AKA a strategy to maximize your filmâs effectiveness. This will help you focus on a specific TJM issue to create meaningful and targeted đŻ change (Duncombe, 2023)!!!
OK … let me tell you a story. Itâs 2008. Iâm watching â˝ď¸ football. Age 6. Suddenly, itâs half-time. A charityâs plea for donations appears on the TV. Starving Sudanese children đśđż scatter the screen. Their exposed black ribs protrude from the telly stabbing đĄ into my young eyes – bringing them to tears đ˘. WHY do I still remember? Emotions imprint far deeper than facts ever can – so your film must aim not just to inform, but to includeemotion that will shakeyour viewer.
In April, I walked past Primark. My attention focused on glossy posters of young girls đ§ posing. Slowly, their faces distorted into Nadya Vall from Girl Model. Filmmakers follow this 13 year old girl from Siberia to Tokyo, chasing her dream to become a model. But it falls apart and she cries for help. The image burnt đĽ into my brain đ§ . I couldnât stop thinking about Nadya.
Screenshots of girl model Nadya Vall in Girl Model.
Filmmakers use tactics to trigger 𤎠đ đ˘ đŤ đĄ đł đ. Girl Model finds a character in Nadya who ‘gives the film a clear protagonist'(Saito in Hambly et al., 2025, np) creating a bond between the viewer and Nadya (Nash & Corner, 2016). The film includes suffering kids đ§ as Nadya cries to return to her impoverished home which is contrasted with Ashley, Nadyaâs manager, who is free to wander her ‘cavernous Connecticut mansion’ đĄ (Lucca in Hambly et al., 2025, np).
Screenshots of model scout Ashley Arbaugh in Girl Model.
By bringing a manager into view, filmmakers reveal Ashleyâs apathy through unsettling imagery – strange dolls đŞand eerie photo cut-outs of models – which underscore her ‘disconnection from the modelling world’ (Redmon in ibid) and Nadya (Natter & Jones III, 1993). These tactics together encourage empathy đĽšby helping viewers really understand Nadyaâs suffering â which often makes viewers sad (Redmon in Hambly et al., 2025; Dant, 2012).
Screenshots of Ashley’s baby doll collection and covert snapshots in Girl Model.
It worked! Itâs ‘saddening’ âšď¸ (Almachar in Hambly et al., 2025, np). Iâm so sad. Sadness is ‘a response to and feeling of loss’ (Kemp, 2025, p.44). Myself and others found Girl Model pretty ‘disturbing’ (Cli in Hambly et al., 2025, np)âŚ.itâs disgusting 𤎠. These feelings are brought on by violations of morality and with these physical feelings of revulsion đ¤˘, the filmâs message hits deeper into the viewerâs heart â¤ď¸ (Ryynänen et al., 2023).
By not ramming information down our throats, Girl Modeltold the truth â ‘a veritĂŠ narrative’ (Sabin & Redmond in Hambly et al., 2025, np) and this amplified đ the filmâs impacts âšď¸ 𤎠(Sabin & Redmond in Hambly et al., 2025).
Activism was inspired! Someone else made a film, people asked how they could create change, and conversations roared online â this engagement with the film is the first step toward real change ⌠now weâre talking đŹ (Sabin & Redmond and Bleasdale in Hambly et al, 2025).
So now we know about Nadyaâs exploitationâŚ. our knowledge is the starting point for action âđ˝.
Hold on âď¸. Wenzel (2011) warns that consumers often confuse gaining knowledge with meaningful action. As a result, films can end up re-fetishizing commodities, simply generating new demand: dammit đ¤ (ibid).
BUT WAIT! Nash and Corner (2016) explain how to overcome thisâŚ..emotions can be just as powerful, if not more so, than knowledge. By fostering emotional attachment to an issue, films have the potential to stimulate genuine action, not just passive awareness (ibid)!!!!
OK, now I know emotions are important. Girl Model got people âšď¸ and đ¤Ž. Mangetout got people đĄ.
Mangetoutpopped the bubble by confronting Brits ‘with their most popular supermarket Tesco actually running a farm in Zimbabwe’ (Miller in Cook et al., 2025, np). Crossing cultures and following the thing traces the journey of mangetout peas đŤ ‘from African soil to English dinner plate’ (Phillips in ibid) exposing the interconnected web of commodities and their externalities along the way (Callon, 1998). BAM đĽ my commodity fetishism 𫧠was popped â Marx can #RIP 𪌠(Cook et al., 2002).
Screenshots of the farm, the TESCO HQ & the dinner table in Mangetout.
Tesco veg buyer Mark Dady travels to Zimbabwe bringing managers into view. He inspects Chiparawe farm [code đ§âđť for] he bullies farmers to grow the perfect đŤ for minimal Ps đˇ (Aaronovitch in Cook et al., 2025). Markâs arrival đŹ is accompanied by imperial music to add mood music đľ which juxtaposes extremes with Zimbabweans singing ‘Tescoâs our dear friend’ đ¤(Holt in Cook et al., np; Friedberg, 2004). Juxtaposition is useful to filmmakers cos it helps highlight stark inequalities (Wenzel, 2011)!
A juxtaposition đ¨âđŤ masterclassâŚâŚâŚ
Screenshots from Mangetout.
Mark âŹď¸ demands farmworkers trim the đŤ leaves for the consumerâs benefit …! Grannie âŹď¸ explains her past traumas while a British consumer at a dinner party âŹď¸ says workers – like Grannie – ‘are probably happy in their mud hut’ (OâMalley in Cook et al., 2025, np).
Screenshots of the dinner party guest and farm worker Grannie from Mangetout
These tactics juxtaposes British consumers đ¤ľââď¸ with Zimbabwean farmworkers đŠđžâđž leading to a response of these consumers are insane â theyâre called arrogant, bstards, and c&*ts (in Cook et al., 2025). Contrasting consumers with producers provokes viewers to rally 𪧠against the dinner party guests (Wenzel, 2011). Viewers were so angry đĄ at Tesco đż that they wanted to ‘kick in the TV’ đş (Jema in Cook et al., 2025, np). Anger helps prompt action by breaking viewer passivity (Chouliaraki, 2010). In response to Mangetout, Tesco joined the Ethical Trade Initiative showing ‘the ability of film to intervene in the foodscape’ (Richardson-Ngwenya & Richardson in Cook et al., 2025, np). Corporations changed đĽđĽđĽ because of political consumerism (Stolle & Micheletti 2013).
Effective. Intentions â Impacts. But just a word of warning, triggering tooooo strong emotions can backfire. Chouliaraki (2010) â worth a read đ btw warns of the boomerang (viewers resent blame, shame & guilt tactics ) and bystander effects (viewers feels powerless đŹ). The trick is to deliver enough emotion to spark action 𧨠without triggering paralysis or resentment đŤŠ.
But The ginger đŤ trail doesnât trigger strong emotions at all. đ A major flaw?
Screenshots from The ginger trail.
Itâs an I-Doc đŚ. Viewers choose clips đ˝ and in what order theyâre watched. Interactivity facilitates participation in making a film rather than simply consuming it â this immerses viewers (Aston, 2022). This film teaches economic geographies (Ananthanarayana, 2025). It shows slow violence caused by ginger cultivation but itâs hard to show violence that takes place over many years âł (ibid; Davies, 2022). It overcomes this by showing communities suffering consequences of slow violence which impacts viewers emotionally đ which is what Davies (2022) recommends!
Screenshots from The ginger trail.
Viewers wanted to find out more. To ‘work out the puzzle đ§Š of seemingly disconnected clips’ (Anon in Ananthanarayana, 2025, np). But responses were ‘not emotionally charged’ đ¤Śââď¸ (ibid). Still, now weâre talking; viewers ‘told their house about the film’ (ibid). đ Knowledge is dispersed. But was this an effective film?
IMOâŚNo. It nailed interactivity. But the lack of emotional response means the film risks creating passive awareness đ¤ˇââď¸ rather than action (Nash and Corner, 2016). Films have to get the viewer emotionally.
Thatâs where Ghosts đť comes in. A fictional film. Based on the ‘true story’ (Broomfield in Allen et al., 2025, np) of 23 Chinese migrant workers who died đ at Morecambe Bay in 2004. It tells the truth đŻ and shows capitalist evils by telling the story of Ai Qin and ‘the chain of labour that exploits illegal immigrants’ (Romney in ibid). Telling stories are effective as they help viewers connect to characters which moves them emotionally đ (Nash and Corner, 2016). The film created characters AND found characters! Lead actors were Chinese migrants â ‘neither actors nor themselves’ (Martin in Allen et al., 2025, np).
Screenshots from Ghosts (bottom right: Ai Qin goes food shopping).
Oh and also, Ghosts showed the violence đĄâđ¤ workers endured in Morecambe bay forcing the viewer to imagine themselves there (Wenzel, 2011). These tactics combine to include (so much raw) emotion in Ghosts meaning viewers know ‘this is the real thing’ (Anon in Allen et al., 2025, np).
Screenshot from Ghosts of ‘the fight between indigenous and migrant workers’ (Martin in ibid).
Then I cried đ. Having built an attachment to the workers, having seen the violence they were victims of, the scene where they drown đââď¸ was TOO MUCH! Itâs difficult ‘ NOT to cry’ (Johnjoe66 in ibid). Viewers feel helpless which combined with feeling so sad đ they just cry đ (Frome, 2014). Ghosts shows how ‘unchecked capitalism haunt[s] this deeply felt film’ (Geall in Allen et al. 2025, np). Ugggh, capitalism is sh*t! â đ˘ đĄ đŠ đ¤Ž.
Screenshot from Ghosts.
But … something positive … debts were paid off â ‘the crippling debts inherited by the families of the victims of the Morecambe Bay Tragedy have been paid off’ (Anon in ibid).
Screenshot from the Ghosts website.
Emotion + Knowledge = Actionâď¸2008 â 2025 and a film still makes me đ. Ghosts đť worked.
Now, Primark on the rack đđ worked but wait for the đ twist. It showed capitalist evils by exposing Primarkâs suppliers using child refugees from Sri Lanka as wage labourers in India, earning just ’19p a day’ đ (Williams in Adley et al., 2025, np). Capitalism f*cking failed these people 𫩠(Chellan, 2023). By targeting the right brand – one with ‘170 stores nationwide’ (Williams in Adley et a., 2025, np), filmmakers tried to change corporate behaviour by ‘set[ting] up [their] target’ đŻ (Maroney in ibid). Exposing the discrepancies between Primarkâs brand image and reality hit đ them hard â exploiting their corporate vulnerabilities â ruining reputations, provoking them to change (Micheletti & Stolle, 2008; Cook et al., 2019).
Screenshots from Primark – on the rack.
Want a strong reaction? Like Girl Model, include suffering kids đ Capitalism is sh*t â ‘An inequality-enhancing machine’ đ (Wright, 2015, np).
BUT THEREâS A PROBLEM!!! The filmmakers [allegedly] â ď¸ fabricated â ď¸ a scene of children working in Bangalore â the ‘footage was not authentic’ (Greenslade in Adley et al., 2025, np). Child exploitation is socially unacceptable, and I think the filmmakers đĽ took advantage of this to incite đĄ đ˘ đŠ đ¤Ž (Aguigar et al., 2008). Primark tried to silence đ¤ their critics by challenging the filmmakers but this backfired because of the Streisand Effect â activism was publicised 𤯠(Cook et al., 2018). Prioritising PR đ§Żdrew more attention đ to their exploitation⌠‘what about the other children that featured in THE REST OF THE ONE HOUR FILM’ (emilynew in Adley et al, 2025, np).
With public outcry magnified đ, corporations changed. In 2013, the Rana Plaza clothes factory collapsed killing over 1,100 people in Dhaka, Bangladesh (Cook et al., 2018). Primarkâs response was to spend ÂŁ9 million đ°to support local communities â or to (try) cover their arses (ibid).
An EFFECTIVE film. But the filmmaker who exposed Primark also found out (ibid). The film would have triggered the desired anti-capitalist reaction without the fake footage â something to avoid đŤ when making your film!
Uh-oh, back to Rana Plaza. Iâm welling up. But Iâm crying đ because UDITA is inspiring.
Over 5 years, UDITA follows female garment factory workers in their mission for justice before and after Rana Plaza. Ending violence and exploitation was the goal – ‘Udita shows the agency of these women’ (Minney in Barker et al., 2025, np) to overcome injustice. It encourages feminist đ¤đťđ¤đ˝ solidarities giving women greater confidence and knowledge to DEMAND their rights (Hale & Willis, 2007). Its ‘just the workers voices’đŁ (Rainbow Collective in Barker et al., 2025, np).
Screenshots from Udita.
In UDITA – workers take the mic đ! Collective action is key to taking down capitalism (McLaren, 2019). By finding and giving đ inspiration – ‘like the inspirational Ratna Miah’ (Hoskins in Barker et al., 2025, np), there is one overriding response: these people are ‘inspiring on a global level’ (ibid) đ. Inspiration is powerful âđ˝ cos it encourages the viewer to emulate the inspiring women in UDITA (Thrash and Elliot, 2003). And the best bit? It worked alongside other emotions. This is so sad. I’m so angry. This gives me hope (Season Bangla Drama in Barker et al., 2025, np).
Screenshots from UDITA.
This hope encourages other people to continue with their own activism (Brown & Pickerell, 2009). UDITAinspired activism as people globally challenge injustice through their own community campaigns đ¤ -‘I am filming everything to collect evidence for our own community campaign’ (Salmon in Barker et al., 2025, np). And thereâs more! Governments intervened. In France, legislation changed because ‘Rana Plaza was covered by newspapers, petition of NGOs, film, documentary’ (Evans in ibid) like UDITA. 𤊠WHOA! Thatâs real change âđ˝.
RIGHT, so whatâs my answer???
Effective films use emotions đĄ đ˘ đ đŠ đ¤Ž đ¤ 𫩠𤯠𤩠to provoke responses that galvanise action. So think carefully before locking in your theory of change. Choose the emotion that wonât let go – then hit đ ‘record.’ By shaking viewers emotionally and making them feel injustice, youâre not just making a documentary – youâre starting a movement âđ˝.
Think of Nadya đ, Grannie đĄ, Ai Qin đââď¸, the children đ§ of Primark, and the women đ§đ˝đ§đ˝đ§đ˝ of Dhaka.
Effective films ignite emotion. Now you know. Get out there and inspire change! â¨
SOURCES
Adley, K., Keeble, R., Russell, P., Stenholm, N., Strang, W. and Valo, T. (2025) Primark â On The Rack. followthethings.com (https://followthethings.com/?p=2655 last accessed 27 April 2025)
Aguigar, P., Vala, J., Correia, I. & Pereira, C. (2008) Justice in Our World and in that of Others: Belief in a Just World and Reactions to Victims. Social Justice Research 21(1), p. 50-68.
Allen, H., Heaume, E., Heeley, L., Hedger, R., Johnson, S., McGregor, O. and Webber, L. (2025). Ghosts. followthethings.com (https://followthethings.com/?p=10357 last accessed 27 April 2025)
Ananthanarayana, B. (2025) Untitled [Q&A video & transcript], GEO3123: Geographies of material culture. University of Exeter.
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Aston, J. (2022) Interactive Documentary: Re-setting the Field. Interactive Film and Media Journal 2(4), p.7-18
Bannister, L. & Bergan, R. (2023) A timeline of UK trade and trade justice. London: Trade Justice Movement
Barker, T., Collier, J., Baker, A., Coppen, L. and Eve, H. (2025) UDITA (ARISE). followthethings.com (https://followthethings.com/?p=1593 last accessed 27 April 2025)
Brown, G. & Pickerell, J. (2009) Space for emotion in the spcaes of activism. Emotion, space, & society 2, p.24-35
Callon, M. (1998) An essay on framing & overflowing: economic externalities revisited by sociology. The sociological review 46(1), p.244â269
Chellan, N. (2023) The life of capitalism. in his F/Ailing capitalism and the challenge of COVID-19. Leiden: Brill, p.180-216
Chouliaraki, L. (2010) Post-humanitarianism Huamitarian communication beyond a politics of pity. International journal of cultural studies 13(2), p.107-126
Cook et al, I. (2018) Inviting construction: Primark, Rana Plaza and Political LEGO. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 43(3), p.477-495
Cook et al, I. (2019) A new vocabulary for culturalâeconomic geography? Dialogues in Human Geography 9(1), p.83-87
Cook et al, I. (2025) Mangetout. followthethings.com (https://followthethings.com/mange-tout.shtml last accessed 27 April 2025)
Cook et al, I. (2002) Commodities: the DNA of capitalism. (https://followtheblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/commodities_dna.pdf last accessed 27 April 2025)
Dant, T. (2012) Mediating morality. in his Television and the moral imaginary. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 147-178
Davies, T.,(2022) Slow violence and toxic geographies: ‘Out of sight’ to whom? Politics and Space 40(2), p.409-427
Duncombe, S. (2023) A Theory of Change for Artistic Activism. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 81, p.260-268
Friedberg, S. (2004) The ethical complex of corporate food power. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22, p.513-531
Frome, J. (2014) Melodrama and the psychology of tears. Projections 8(1), p.23â40
Hale, A. & Willis, J. (2007) Women Working Worldwide: transnational networks, corporate social responsibility and action research. Global Networks 7(4), p.453-476
Hambley, A., King, E., Keogh, A., Renny-Smith, C., Callow, E., Thorogood, J. & Alloy, V. (2025) Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour. followthethings.com (https://followthethings.com/girl-model.shtml last accessed 27 April 2025)
Kemp, D. (2025) Comparing disgust and sadness: examining the interaction of emotion and information in charity appeals. Journal of Social Marketing [online early], pp. 42-58.
McLaren, M. (2019) Global Gender Justice: Human Rights and Political Responsibility. Critical Horizons 20(2), p.127-144.
Micheletti, M. & Stolle, D. (2008) Fashioning social justice through political consumerism, capitalism and the internet. Cultural Studies 22(5), p.749-769
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Ryynänen, M., Kosonen, H. & YlÜnen, S. (2023) From visceral to the aesthetic: tracing disgust in contemporary culture. in their (eds.) Cultural Approaches to Disgust and the Visceral. London: Routledge, p.3-16
Stolle, D. & Micheletti, M. (2013) Does political consumerism matter? Effectiveness and limits of political consumer activism repertoires. in their Political consumerism: global responsibility in action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.204-243
Thrash, T. & Elliot, A. (2003) Inspiration as a Psychological Construct. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84(4), p.871-889
Wenzel, J. (2011) Consumption for the common good? Commodity biography film in an age of postconsumerism. Public culture 23(3), p.573-602
“Barbie’s Dirty Secrets“ A documentary film presented by Isobel Yeung, and produced by Alasdair Glennie for Zandland, first broadcast on Channel 4, UK. Available on YouTube, embedded above.
Journalist Isobel Yeung latches onto worldwide success of the 2023 Barbie movie and its feminist critique of the toy industry to ask about the lives of the women who make these dolls in factories in China. She drives around Los Angeles in a Barbie pink Jeep, picking up expert passengers who know about Mattel – the LA-headquartered company that makes and markets this doll – and about the wealth enjoyed by its CEO Ynon Kreiz. These scenes are intercut with Yeung’s phone calls to a fixer in China who is tasked to get an undercover reporter into a Barbie factory wearing a hidden camera. This reporter lasts just one day handling scolding hot plastic Barbie limbs with her bare hands, and is withdrawn for her own health and wellbeing. A second undercover reporter then gets a job assembling plastic figures from a forthcoming Disney Moana movie. He seems to last a day or two, unable to meet rising quotas for new employees, but he captures conversations with his co-workers about life and work in the factory. This undercover footage is shown to a representative of a labour rights NGO who is horrified by the violations that she sees. The film then shifts its attention to another Mattel brand – Fisher Price – and a dangerous cot which has been linked to the deaths of babies, and legal cases against the company. [We don’t detail this below, because we are interested in the way that this film connect the labour, marketing and consumption of Barbie dolls]. Our website has documented many landmark examples of trade justice activism when it was new – from the late 1990s in particular – and when it could have shock value and noticeable impact. Audiences in the 2020s, however, seem no longer to be shocked to find labour exploitation at the end of a supply chain. Corporations are better set up to handle the damage that such revelations may or may not do to their reputations and sales. And ‘trade justice activism’ like this is now pitched by production companies to broadcasters as a form of ‘buzzy’ media content. But, for us, there are glimmers of a more complex theory of change at work here. Less than a week after Barbie’s dirty secrets was broadcast, a China Labor Watch report was published that detailed exploitative and dangerous factory conditions in Barbie factories in China. Isobel Yeung refers to such a report in the film. The role that Barbie’s dirty secrets therefore had, we speculate, was to work alongside this NGO research, to make the report’s findings public, and to connect accusations of Mattel’s feminist corporate hypocrisy through the same media as the Barbie movie: film. Should anyone studying trade justice activism expect to final any single example having an impact in and of itself? No. And is possible to follow just one thing? It doesn’t look like it here. Check the comments below.
Blood, sweat & takeaways Girl model UDITA Mangetout
INGREDIENTS
INTENTIONS
Pop the bubble Cross cultures Show capitalist evils Tell the truth Teach economic geography Show what’s possible
TACTICS
Have a theory of change Choose an audience Make it familiar Bring managers into view Involve consumers Fund the unions Humanise workers Workers take the mic! Lie to tell the truth Silence your critics
RESPONSES
This is so sad Capitalism is sh*t I won’t buy it Liar! Fraud! It’s so badly mad Who to believe? I’m humming that music These people are inspiring
IMPACTS
Now I know Now we’re talking I shop differently now Corporations change Governments intervene Debts are paid off Can’t tell
“You can’t Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V resistance“
By Lucian Harford
IN BRIEF
Student Lucian Harford has taken the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module at the University of Exeter. He’s been watching trade justice documentaries, analysing the comments on their followthethings.com pages, and making sense of them using a draft copy of ‘The followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’. He knows a thing or two about how trade justice documentaries work and what they can do. He’s’s been asked to imagine meeting a filmmaker who’s planning a new trade justice documentary. What advice could he give? Well, it turns into a bit of a rant. He’s been riled up by these films and the ways that they’ve been discussed on their followthethings.com pages. He ends up giving some stark, unexpected advice. We can’t give you the spoiler here though.
More about this page.
We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called The ginger trail). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?
When it escapes the cinema room and ambushes you in Aisle 3, Sainsburyâs, Exeter, EX1 3PF. Let me contextualise. December 2024. Deep in my nectar price era đ¤, zigzagging Pinhoe Sainsburyâs. Iâm on a mission. Marx wouldâve hated me. Classic case of commodity fetishism (Cook et al., 2002).
Sainsbury’s Exeter store.
29th of March 2025. Day after my last Geographies of Material Culture seminar. Iâm back in Sainsburyâs. Innocent enough, right? Wrong. Aisle 3. Midway between the mangetout and the courgettes. Boom – my brain betrays me.
It whispers: âTescoâs our dear friend.â đ
I froze. Kenyan broccoli gave me side-eyes. Ghanaian pineapples look like theyâre organising a strike. Jamaican bananas are silently mourning my moral compass. đ It was no longer a food shop but a postcolonial reckoning under migraine-inducing strip lightingâŚâŚ..cheers (Cook and Harrison, 2003). Thanks, material culture films. You broke me. But like⌠in a good way? I guess consumption with a conscience is better than nothing (Wenzel, 2011). Now Iâm spiralling. If a film can do that to me (burrow into my nectar choices and trolley). Is that⌠â¨effectiveâ¨? đ¤ Do you even know what â¨effective⨠means? Hereâs a clue. Have a theory of change.
Screenshot from the Handbook.
No, itâs not just some academic buzzword. Itâs your ‘how’. HOW does ‘X’ lead to ‘Y’ (Duncombe, 2023). Think about it like a chain. Your activismâs intentions need the right tactics, as they likely to lead to specific responses and impacts. Example: If you want your filmâs response – IDK – to be ‘capitalism is sh*t‘ and its impact to be ‘I shop differently now‘ đ (or go bigger: corporations change!), then it needs the correct intentions and tactics to hopefully lead to this.
Screenshots from the Handbook.
Thatâs a theory of change 101! Easy, rightâŚâŚ.?? NOPE. Thats what REALLY pisses me off. đ¤ â ď¸ Disclaimer: This might turn into a crazy rant â ď¸
Right. Say you want to make a film to take down capitalism (slay). If thatâs where youâre starting, go back and watch Mark Phillips’ Mangetout (1997). It dropped right before the 1999 Battle of Seattle, a pivotal moment when people really started calling out the global trade injustice screwing over the Global South (Bannister and Bergan, 2023).
Mangetout popped the bubble as it was the âfirst time British viewers were confronted with their most popular supermarket, Tescoâ (Millar in Cook et al., 2025, np). And it crossed cultures of the đŤpea. From farm đżđź to shelf đŹđ§.
Screenshots from the Handbook.
It introduced Grannie Chabvundira, âa 25-year-old mangetout caterpillar inspectorâ (Philips in ibid), who drops the line: âlife is too hardâ (Mangetout, 2005 time 41.12), becuase of F***ing Tescoâs!!! đł
Screenshot of Grannie talking in Mangetout.
Unlike Grannie, Tesco manager Mark Dady was brought into view. On the farm, Mark and his team âwere treated like Godsâ (OâMally in Cook et al., 2025, np). âIt was sickeningâ (ibid). đ¤˘
Screenshots from the Handbook.Screenshot of Mark Dady’s arrival at the farm where Grannie worked in Mangetout.
Afterwards, âTesco became evil [or sh*t]for meâ (Chapman in ibid). I too questioned my damn shopping habits and thought ‘I wonât buy it!’ â
Screenshots from the Handbook.
Seems a good impact? You might think, ‘to be â¨effectiveâ¨, I gotta do what Mangetout did’. Not so fast, young activist, itâs not that simple. đ Introducing Blessing. âChief mange-tout picker at Chiparaweâ (Hall in ibid). He has never been to Tesco.
Screenshot + quotation from Mangetout.
Hopefully, the penny has dropped for you as it did for me. Blessingâs life isnât anyoneâs to interpret. Thereâs no blueprint for â¨effective⨠activism, no one path to impact. People, contexts, and strategies vary, too (Duncombe, 2024).
Itâs like me saying Mangetout existed to make JUST ME and YOU 𫵠feel something. #Embarrassed #Selfish đ So. You should choose an audience. Nisbet and Aufderheide (2009) say mobilisation begins with specificity. Your film doesnât need everyone. Just the right people.
Screenshots from the Handbook.
Take Nick Broomfieldâs 2006 film Ghosts, it knew who to talk to. Its ‘X’ was to show capitalist evils and blow the lid off the Morecambe Bay disaster to âestablish our complicity as consumers in the workersâ fateâ (McCahill in Allen et al., 2025 np). đŤĽ
Take this scene. Read the subtitles! Ai Quin & her co-worker are in a Tesco store. Before they harvested cockles in Morecambe Bay, they’d picked spring onions Tesco. Ghosts ripped the packaging open and said: ‘Theyâre not just onions. Theyâre testimonies of struggle’ (Cook & Woodyer, 2012).
Ghosts âshowed the dark side of globalisationâ (Bradshaw in Allen et al., 2025, np). It didnât just say the politics of consumption are broken. It âmade for an uncomfortable viewingâ (Tinniswood in ibid), making Tinniswood feel globalisation’s fracture lines (Hartwick, 2000). đ¤ Great! Now I know about âthe appalling circumstancesâ (Tang in Allen et al., 2025, np) of the Morecambe Bay disaster, and that Ghosts encouraged audience to donate momey to pay off the debts of the drowned workers’ famililes in China. A couple of ‘Ys’ for this film. đ
Screenshots from the Handbook.
That’s good impact, butâŚâŚ in my opinion … MORECAMBE BAY SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!! đ¤Ź
Iâm getting riled up. Letâs talk irony and absurdity. Ilha das Flores, is a 1989 pseudo-doc that teaches economic geography as âdeep as a punch in the stomachâ (@nacaotutumbaie3559 in Pavalow, 2025 np). Itâs about ‘capitalism, told through the story of a tomatoâ (Delaney, in ibid).
Screenshot from the Handbook
The film, particularly this scene at the end (read subtitles đ), made me feel like âan alien watching a documentary about inequality on Earthâ đ˝ (@Canalinfantilreinabowwfriends in ibid).
Screenshots from Ilha das Flores.
People raved! âWhat an incredible documentaryâ (@rosangelafigueiredo6082 in ibid), and it was crowned âthe best Brazilian short film ever madeâ (Anon in ibid)! đ Itâs haunting, clever, and people âremember it very wellâ (@AndersonPedron in ibid). Its impact? I canât tellâŚđ¤ˇ
Screenshot from the Handbook
What now? Let’s try another example. Your intention could be topop the bubble – because âwhen it comes to food, we are spoilt for choice, but would we feel the same if we knew the human cost?â (Anon in Clarke et al., 2025 np) – and your tactics could be to make it familiar and involve some consumers. ‘X’ clearly leads to ‘Y’?
Screenshots from the HandbookScreenshots from the Handbook.
This is what BBC 3âs Blood Sweat and Takeaways series did. It followed âsix typical young British food consumersâ (Cuthbertson in ibid) who were dumped into the sweat and steam of Southeast Asiaâs food production lines. One, â[Manos] was annoying from the first 5 minsâ (HairHolic in ibid) after kindly being hosted at a supply chain workerâs home.
Screenshot from Blood, sweat & takeaways.
Another, Olu, then body slams Manos into a glass wall in a tuna factory. đŤ
Screenshot from Blood, sweat & takeaways.
It was like watching Love Island sweatshop edition! These consumers were insane! Honestly, it was âso excruciating that youâre tempted toâ (Ferguson in ibid) turn off this badly made âscripted drama bsâ (keikurooka5105 in ibid) đ¤Ź.
NĂĽls (2018) was right. By involving the wrong consumers/characters, you risk your audience sitting back partially detaching, watching suffering like itâs another episodeâŚ..or worse fully detaching.
Tactic screenshots from the HandbookResponse screenshots from the Handbook
Need proof? Read below đŹ đđ
I know its a little off topic but does anyone know what song it is at 36.14, I really like it (Source: hyperventil8 2012 np link).
The song is called âWe Walkâ by The Ting Tings (Source: TopshelferDude 2012 np link).
Does anyone know the song @ 53:50 i want to know please reply D: (Source: theMarcus4131 2012 np link).
Song is âKidsâ by MGMT (Source: TopshelferDude 2012 np link).
F**k you for putting Chemical Brothers and Justice on such a sh*tty documentary (Source: anevershiftingsun 2012 np link).
Discussion of Blood, sweat & takeaways in Clarke et al (2025, np).
Okay, I need to breathe. You need to breathe. This rant is not over. â Letâs talk about another example. And lies. Yes – LIES. Your doc could lie to tell the truth. Sorry, not sorry. đ
Screenshot from the Handbook.
Stam (2016) said it. Documentaries are not âpureâ, never were. Never will be. 𫢠Take Primark: On the Rack. The 2008 documentary followed a thing (a sequin top) by using âhidden camerasâ (McDougall in Adley et al., 2025 np) to uncover âthe use of child labour in the finishing of cheap clothesâ (ibid). Stam would love this đ¤Ł
Screenshots from Primark – on the rack.
This was connective aesthetics – grabbing your senses, stirring emotions, making you realise that every time you throw on a ÂŁ3 Primark tee (Cook et al., 2000). But youâre also watching âthree boys in a Bangalore workshop testing stitchingâ (Anon in Adley et al., 2025 np). So this crashed headfirst into the very myth it challenged. đ And Primark tried to silence its critics. They cried LIAR, FRAUD!!!
Screenshots from the Handbook.
The âfootage could not be genuineâ (Primark in ibid). Primark even set up a website: âwww.primarkresponse.comâ, showing âwhat Primark had to do to expose this false claim and clear our nameâ (ibid). What a MESS! Now. Over to one commenter, Siddy_06 𼲠: ‘What are we meant to dooo?! I wish someone would tell me, If I get what I would buy from another shop, who can guarantee they are not doing the same thing?’ (in ibid). YES, SIDDY_06. SCREAM IT. LOUDER. FOR. THE. PEOPLE. IN. THE. BACK. Who to believe!!!!!???? đ
Screenshot from the Handbook.
Levine (2007) would probably argue that SIDDY_06âs scepticism wasnât just ignorance or rejection – it was a complex, socially driven response to fear, stigma, and mistrust of authority in the trade justice movement. Just when youâve understood that. Now, enter Wallace Heim (2003) who says the power of a documentary lies in sowing seeds for future rethinking – quiet mindset changes that bloom into something bigger.
Thanks for the mind f*ck Wall-Ace. But WTF is one meant to do! Scatter â¨effective⨠seeds into the wind and hope something grows (see Duncombe 2024)!? ActuallyâŚ.. maybe Wall-Ace has a point. đ If your film just tells the truth and holds it up to the light, maybe beautiful â¨effectiveness⨠will bloom. Honesty is the best policy, isnât it?
TBF, the film Uditashows whatâs possible by telling the truth. Screw the official story đĽą. The real truth lies in those who live and tell their stories (Zeng, 2017).
Screenshotted intentions from the Handbook.
Udita plunges you into the chaos before, during, and after the Rana Plaza disaster to reveal âan extraordinary and raw insight into the lives of the female factory workers in Bangladeshâ (Posh in Barker et al., 2025 np). It humanises garment workers đđ˝ by finding their unions âđ˝ and letting them take the mic đ¤.
Screenshotted tactics from the Handbook.Screenshots from UDITA.
It was âheart breakingâ (McCulloch in ibid) to watch; I know how they feel. This is so sad. âMy heart goes out to the aged grandmother who lost her two daughters at Rana Plazaâ (Schon-Meier in ibid). đ˘ But wait – pause the sadness for a second. âA lot of films and articles portray garment workers as victimsâ (Minney in Ibid), but in Udita, these people are âinspiring on a global levelâ (Hoskins in ibid)!
Screenshotted responses from the Handbook.
OMG â THEN – âTrade unionists, workersâ rights activists, and local community groups will gatherâ (Salmon in ibid). NOW WEâRE TALKING. BOOM! đĽ ! Governments started intervening! There was an âacceleration in legislative change in Franceâ (Evans in ibid) because âRana Plaza was covered by newspapers, petitions of NGOS, film, and documentariesâ (ibid). Like this.
Screenshotted impacts from the Handbook.
There’s a well evidenced ‘X’ to ‘Y’ sequence here. You intend to show what’s possiblewith trade justice activism and totell the truth about workers’ involvement in it. You use tactics that can humanise them, by finding their unions and letting them take the mic. This could lead to audiences responding with sadness about their struggles and/or inspiration about their achievements. And your film’s impacts could simply be the talk that it sparks about these tradwe justice struggles and the chance that – added to other activists’ work on this topic – this could help encourage governments to intervene.
But WAIT! â Donât grab your camera just yet. Time to pop your bubble again (for the last time). Just cus it worked in Bangladesh doesnât mean you can Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V resistance (Demos, 2010). Grassroots power matters, but remember MorecambeâŚ..? Rana Plaza…? They should have never F***ing happened in the first place!! đ¤Ź. NGL, when the whole global economy runs on exploitation, chasing â¨documentary effectiveness⨠just looks like damage control (Harvey, 2010).
RIGHT, Iâve humoured this long enough!! Hereâs the truth! I CANâT TELL YOU HOW TO MAKE AN â¨EFFECTIVE⨠TRADE JUSTICE DOCUMENTARY! đ Cus if youâve learnt anything on this commodities-lit, capitalist-infused, GEO3123 rant. Itâs this! THERE IS NO SINGULAR CORRECT WAY! đŠ IT ALL ADDS UP! Real change is messy! Itâs chaos! Contradiction and unexpected moments are what really move the trade justice movement along (Connor and Phelan, 2013).
Screenshotted tactic from the Handbook.
Now this is … awkward. After all this ranting, yes technically all the films I told you about were effective … just in their own ways. #AWKWARD đ¤ŤđŤŁ
HOWEVER! Hereâs my theory of change for you. To be effective in the trade justice movement DON’T make a documentary. đ Mic â Drop đ¤ Put the camera down. Take your budget, kit, and big activist dreams. Give them to the unions, co-ops, and grassroots groups already knee-deep in it. Do it for Grannie & Blessing in Mangetout. For Ai Qin & coworkers in Ghosts. For the boys in Primark: On the Rack. For the women in Udita. Supply chain workers donât need retakes to show struggle. They live it! đ
Rant Over.
Screenshot from Mangetout.Screenshot from the Handbook.
SOURCES
Patricia Aguiar, Jorge Vala, Isabel Correia & Cicero Pereira (2008) Justice in our world & in that of others: belief in a just world & reactions to victims. Social Justice Research, 21, 50-68.
Theo Barker, Joe Collier, Annabel Baker, Lizzie Coppen & Henry Eve (2025) UDITA (ARISE). (followthethings.com/udita.shtml last accessed 2 May 2025)
Clive Barnett & David Land (2007) Geographies of generosity: beyond the âmoral turnâ. Geoforum 38(6), 1065-1075.
Tim Bartley & Curtis Child (2014) Shaming the corporation: the social production of targets & the anti-sweatshop movement. American sociological review 79(4) 653â679
+26 sources
HÊlène Bohyn (2025) Omnibus Or Not, Due Diligence Is a Must: Policy Breakdown. Better Cotton, 31 March (https://bettercotton.org/omnibus-or-not-due-diligence-is-a-must-policy-breakdown/ last accessed 22 April 2025)
Gavin Brown & Jenny Pickerill (2009) Space for emotion in the spaces of activism. Emotion, Spaceand Society 2(1), 24-35
Stella Bruzzi (2018) From innocence to experience: the representation of children in four documentary films. Studies in documentary film 12(3), 208â224
Rosemary Campbell-Stephens (2021) Educational leadership & the Global Majority: decolonising narratives. Springer Nature.
Doyle Canning & Patrick Reinsborough (2012) Lead with sympathetic characters. (https://beautifultrouble.org/toolbox/tool/lead-with-sympathetic-characters last accessed 2 May 2025)
Lilie Chouliaraki (2010) Post-humanitarianism: humanitarian communication beyond a politics of pity. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(2), 107â126.
Harriet Clarke, Ben Thomson, Victoria Bartley, Katie Ibbetson-Price, Emma Christie-Miller & Harry Schofield (2025) Blood, Sweat & Takeaways. (followthethings.com/blood-sweat-takeaways.shtml last accessed 2 May 2025)
Ian Cook et al (2025) Mangetout. (followthethings.com/mange-tout.shtml last accessed 2 May 2025)
Ian Cook & Tara Woodyer (2012) Lives of things. in Eric Sheppard, Trevor Barnes & Jamie Peck (eds) The Wiley Blackwell companion to economic geography. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 226-241
Amy Coplan (2011) Understanding empathy: its features & effects. in Amy Complan & Peter Goldie (eds.) Empathy: philosophical & psychological perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2-18
Benjamin CuďŹ, Sarah Brown, Laura Taylor & Douglas Howat (2016) Empathy: a review of the concept. Emotion Review, 8(2), 144-153.
Stephen Duncombe (2023) A theory of change for artistic activism. The journal of aesthetics and artcriticism 81(2), 260-268
Stephen Duncombe (2024) Ăffect: the affect & effect of artistic activism. New York: Fordham University Press
Alice Evans (2020) Overcoming the global despondency trap: strengthening corporate accountability in supply chains. Review of International Political Economy, 27(3), 658-685
Adele Hambly, Elaine King, Andy Keogh, Camilla Renny-Smith, Ed Callow, Joe Thorogood & Vicky Alloy (2025) Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour. (followthethings.com/girl-model.shtml last accessed 2 May 2025)
Irene Hadiprayitno and Sine Bagatur (2022) Trade Justice, Human Rights, and the Case of Palm Oil. in Elena V. Shabliy, Martha J. Crawford & Dmitry Kurochkin (eds) Energy Justice:Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 157-172
Wallace Heim (2003) Slow activism: homelands, love & the lightbulb. Sociological review 51(2), 183-202
Deena Kemp (2025) Comparing disgust and sadness: examining the interaction of emotion & information in charity appeals. Journal of Social Marketing (online early).
Roman Krznaric (2007) Empathy and the Art of Living. Oxford: Blackbird Collective
Genevieve LeBaron, Remi Edwards, Tom Hunt, Charline SempĂŠrĂŠ & Penelope Kyritsis (2022) The ineďŹectiveness of CSR: understanding garment company commitments to living wages in global supply chains. New Political Economy, 27(1), 99-115.
Margaret A. McLaren (2019) Global gender justice: human rights & political responsibility. Critical horizons 20(2), 127-144
Daniel Miller (2001) The poverty of morality. Journal of Consumer Culture, 1(2), 225â243.
Jan NĂĽls (2018) The diďŹculty of eliciting empathy in documentary. In Catalin Brylla & Mette Kramer (eds) Cognitive Theory and Documentary. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 135-148.
Kate Nash & John Corner (2016) Strategic impact documentary: contexts of production & social intervention. European journal of communication 31(3), 227â242
Tony Roberts & Chris Lunch (2015) Participatory video. In Robin Mansell and Peng Hwa Ang (eds) The International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society. London: Wiley, 1-6.
Tillman Wagner, Richard Lutz & Barton Weitz (2009) Corporate hypocrisy: Overcoming the threat of inconsistent corporate social responsibility perceptions. Journal of Marketing 73(6), 77-91
Erik Olin Wright (2015) How to be an anticapitalist today. Jacobin, 12 February
Blood, sweat & takeaways Girl model UDITA Mangetout
INGREDIENTS
INTENTIONS
Improve pay & conditions Show capitalist evils Change citizen behaviour
TACTICS
Tell the truth Have a theory of change Humanise workers Encourage empathy Encourage feminist solidarities Find a character Include suffering kids Spend some time Workers take the mic! Bring managers into view Hold ’em accountable Blame, shame & guilt Encourage a boycott Place things carefully Make a website Stage a Q&A
RESPONSES
I know how they feel This is so sad Capitalism is sh*t Wow đĽ WTF? I’m so angry Oh shut up
IMPACTS
Now we’re talking Activism is inspired Activists are recruited Corporations change Workers’ pay & conditions improve
“Yes, itâs small. But thatâs the point“
By Sophie Burden
IN BRIEF
Student Sophie Burden has taken the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module at the University of Exeter. She’s been watching trade justice documentaries, analysing the comments on their followthethings.com pages, and making sense of them using a draft copy of ‘The followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’. She knows a thing or two about how trade justice documentaries work and what they can do. She’s been asked to imagine meeting a filmmaker who’s planning a new trade justice documentary. What advice could she give? Empathy is your best friend, but don’t get sloppy. Blame the right thing. And play the long game.
More about this page.
We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called The ginger trail). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?
So, you want to make a trade justice documentary that really makes a diďŹerence?
Great idea!
But letâs get one thing straight: eďŹective doesnât just mean making your audience cry into their ÂŁ5 Primark hoodie. Thatâs easy. The hard bit? Sparking activism that actually changes things. Youâve got to wade into global tradeâs murky world and make a dent, however small, to improve pay andconditions for the workers who keep it running.
Thatâs the heart of trade justice activism. It targets the deep unfairness baked into international trade – the fact that 85% of the world hustles to keep a privileged few comfy (Campbell Stephens, 2021).
Itâs about telling the truth: exposing how the global economy puts corporate profit over human rights and workersâ dignity (Hadiprayitno & BaÄatur, 2022, Miller, 2001). And asking: whoâs really winning here?
Spoiler: itâs not the workers.
The goal? Democratise trade governance – fairness, sustainability, accountability. Your film canât just show suďŹering; itâs got to hit harder. Rip back the curtain on capitalist evils and spark reflection that changes citizen behaviour.
And how do you get there? Enter your ⨠theory of change⨠. Duncombe (2023) calls it the Artistic Activism model: real change happens when activism blends emotion, ideas, and action. A great trade justice documentary makes us feel (empathy, anger), think (about justice, fairness, solidarity), and do (push for change).
Hereâs how you make that happenâŚ
Empathy is your best friend – but donât get sloppy
You donât just want audiences to witness suďŹering – you want them to feel it. Thatâs when you get under their skin.
Empathy is the magic sauce. âA pathway to audience engagementâ (Nash & Corner, 2016). But fragile. Your mission? Make people care, not just pity. As Krznaric (2007) puts it, true empathy is an imaginative leap into someone elseâs world.
But if all you spark is tears and a shrug, youâve missed your moment. Empathy without direction? Dead end. Turn that feeling into something stronger: encourage [feminist] solidarities.
So how? First tactic: find a character. Or a few!
Canning & Reinsborough (2012) spell it out – personal stories are what hook people in and encourage empathy. NĂĽls (2018) adds: we need full human backstories, not snapshots. Dreams, struggles, strength. Faces, not faceless crowds.
That said – choose your characters wisely! Cough, CoughâŚ..Blood, Sweat and Takeaways. Six Brits dropped into Southeast Asian factories to âlift the veil on voiceless workersâ (Rees, 2009 in Clarke et al., 2025). But my standout memory of episode one: Olu, the bodybuilder, brawling in a tuna đ factory and smashing a window đĽ . Iconic.. for all the wrong reasons. And wow, did viewers have thoughts t. âIt was ruined by a fightâ (Anon, 2009 in Clarke et al., 2025). âOur greatnation couldnât have chosen worse ambassadorsâ (Whitelaw, 2009 in Clarke et al., 2025). Yeah. Not quite the âtakeawayâ they were going for. đŹ
Screenshots from Blood, sweat & takeaways (centre: from the fight between Olu & Manos)
Bonus tactic: include suďŹering kids. Brutal but eďŹective. Bruzzi (2018) and Aguiar et al. (2008) show nothing hits harder than childhood innocence wrecked by adult-made systems. Thatâs emotional dynamite. đŁ
Then: spend some time with workers. Humanise them. Thatâs how you swap sympathy for real empathy. Cook & Woodyer (2012) say good films âre-attachâ workers to fetishised products, showing real people with struggles and strength. Slow it down, keep the footage raw (CuďŹ et al., 2016). Show whole lives – not just snapshots.
And now, the gold-standard examples.đ
Girl Model. Forget glitz – this film drags us into the dark side of (child!) modelling. Following Nadya, 13, tape-measured, plucked from Siberian, bye family, flown to Japan, wide-eyed and hopeful. What unfolds? Debt, loneliness, shattered dreams – and one deeply creeptastic scout. The camera lingers, vĂŠritĂŠ-style, as her world cracks. (Tactics â â â ). It worked. Viewers felt it. An âUncomfortable, eerieâŚ.saddeningâ film that âsticks with youâ (Almachar, 2012 in Hambly et al., 2025). âI wanted to give Nadya a hug, because I felt her painâ (DisturbedPixie, 2013, in Hambly et al., 2025). Bang – empathy landed. I know how they feel. đ
Screenshots from Girl Model (featuring Siberian child model Nadya Vall).
Blood, Sweat and Takeaways? 𩸠đ§ đ – Despite casting hiccups, it nailed key moments too. Six youngsters in factory grind, each with a backstory. Find some characters. Pick your Brit to feel with (CuďŹ et al., 2016). And the win? We met the workers – not props.. And the audience noticed. @myoldvhstapes (2022, in Clarke et al., 2025) summed it up: âThe young womanâŚ.at the chicken plant spoke of her little son, her plans for his future, her need to make money for him.â Brass (2007, in Clarke et al., 2025) nailed the takeaway: âMigrants are portrayed as ordinary people, like us⌠same kind of hopes and fears.â
Screenshots of British cast members in Blood, Sweat & takeaways empathising with their Indonesian host at home in the city and visiting her son in the countryside.
And when empathy lands? The classic: This is so sad. âItâs really sadâ (CToppa, 2022, in Clarke et al., 2025). âMade me sadâ (Season Bangla Drama, 2015, in Barker et al., 2025). People hook in and canât shake it (Brown & Pickerill, 2009). Sadness sparks reflection (Kemp, 2025) – a win, but it’s only step one. As Chouliaraki (2010) warns, too much victimhood risks sliding into pity. We donât want grief tourists or white saviours (McLaren, 2019). We want viewers moved to stand with, not just cry for, workers. Encourage empathy đ¤Encourage [feminist] solidarities.
One solution? Workers take the mic. đ¤ Participatory filmmaking, as Roberts & Lunch (2015) explain, lets workers represent themselves – as agents, not victims.
Enter Udita: the blueprint. Five years, no Western narrator, no saviours. Just Bangladeshi garment workers telling their own stories. Factory collapse, unimaginable loss, marches, unionising, fighting back. Raw. Unfiltered. Their pain, their determination – it was contagious. Henriksen (2015, in Barker et al., 2025) nails it: âThere are no passive victims. Only men and women who fight for their rights.” đŞ
Screenshots from UDITA showing the Rana Plaza ruins & workers’ protests.
So yes – encourage empathy.
But keep your eyes on the prize: empathy opens the door; solidarity kicks it down.
Blame the right thing
Right! Weâve ruďŹed some feathers now. Emotions are high, eyes are wide. But the real question: whoâs to blame for all this pain?
Spoiler: not the consumer. â
Weâve all seen the blame, shame and guilt tactic in action. The classic move: âLook at your cheap T-shirt! Look what youâve done!â
Sure, the thinking is noble – let guilt spark change (Barnett & Land, 2007). But in practice? It flops.
Guilt paralyses, triggers defensiveness, and sends audiences straight to ‘oh shut up‘ mode (Sandlin & Milam, 2008; McLaren, 2019).
Take Blood, Sweat and Takeaways. Guilt wasnât the goal – but when you show British supermarkets and reel oďŹ stats about how much tuna we guzzle? It hit a nerve. As Simon (2009, in Clarke et al., 2025) groaned: âNow this programme wants to make me feel guilty about eatingtinned tuna – one of the few stress-free meal options I thought I had left.â Me? Smug vegetarian mode activated: popcorn out, blaming my fish-loving friends. Not my problem.
Totally missing the point.
The message? Lost for me + Simon. Swapped for a dinner-time blame game.
And guilt-tripping? Not just unhelpful – downright unfair.
Sure, you couldencourage viewers to boycott the product.
And resist endless marketing. And fight social pressure. And not shop like their friends. And spend more cash (but only on the right brands). And spot greenwashing. And cross-check the supply chain. And decode labels. And dig into corporate reports. Perhaps a degree in ethical consumption just to be sure. đ
Fair? Yeah ⌠no.
So, filmmaker: drop the guilt. If your film makes me feel like the villain? Iâm out before the credits roll.
Instead. Pinpoint the villains and hold ’em accountable.
This is where your documentary punches up. âđ˝
Weâre talking corporations, governments, whole supply chains – the big players cashing in while workers sweat it out.
Your filmâs job? Expose hypocrisies, rip open empty promises, and hit em where it hurts: reputation. Corporations love their glossy ethics reports – but Wagner et al. (2020) are clear: when words clash with reality, trust collapses. Your audience needs to see those cracks.
Expose. Humiliate. Shame. Them. (Bartley & Child, 2014). đ¤ Mangetout nailed it. A wild ride for a humble pea: zooming between smug Brits at dinner parties and Zimbabwean fields where workers sweat for pennies. The kicker? Tescoâs buyer struts in like royalty, barking orders while workers beam – grateful for crumbs from the kingâs table. A clever tactic: bring a manager into view – a villain. And it landed: âTesco became âevilâ for me ⌠when I saw [this] BBC2 documentary back in 1997â (Chapman 2010, in Cook et al 2025). Reputational damage delivered.
Screenshots from Mangetout, including Tesco buyer Mark Dady.
But donât stop at brands. Zoom out.
Greedy supermarkets? A symptom. Capitalism = the disease 𸠖 the âinequality-enhancing machineâ (Wright, 2015) that keeps the whole circus spinning. Mangetout gives us a peaâs-eye view of global capitalism – bosses, farmers, consumers, trapped in a rigged game. McLaren (2019) warns, if you stop at human sob-stories without digging into the structures – you risk propping up the very hierarchies you set out to challenge. No pressure đ
Your real win: not fixing corporations overnight, but shifting how citizens see them – and the broken system behind them. Harder to trust, harder to excuse, harder to ignore.
You want anger. âIâM SO ANGRYâ đĄ . Not that useless guilt-ridden kind – something better.
Slow, collective, empathic anger (Coplan, 2011). (Wink wink: thank yourself for planting those solidarity seeds earlier.) One Udita viewer nailed it: âIt made me angry⌠United We Standâ (Season Bangla Drama, 2015 in Barker et al., 2025). Righteous fire aimed at the real culprits.
Capitalism is sh*t.
Hereâs where Iris Young (2003) comes in clutch: itâs not about guilt – itâs political responsibility. Weâre all tangled in this mess by everyday participation. Real change = Collective action. Pushing governments, corporations, the whole rigged game.
So letâs drop the tired âconsumer blameâ narrative. Your audience? Theyâre citizens, workers, voters, activists – with power way beyond their wallets (Hadiprayitno & BaÄatur, 2021).
The long game
So, after all that righteous anger⌠change? Itâs not coming fast. Sorry. But donât lose hope. This is where the real magic kicks in.
Sadness fades. Anger cools. But conversations? They ripple.đ§
Thatâs what turns a trade justice doc from a one-oďŹ gut punch into a long-haul political tool. Done right, these films slide into the cultural bloodstream – sparking awkward dinner-table debates, furious WhatsApps, late-night Googling.
Tiny shifts that start tipping the scales.
Heim (2003) calls it slow activism: quiet, persistent, woven through everyday life. No megaphones, no instant wins – but sticky + powerful.
Girl Model has no neat resolution, but it haunted. âI watched this movie a week ago and I cannot for the life of me get it out of my headâ (Zippy, 2013 in Hambly et al., 2025). The dream: a film that gnaws and wonât let go. Wow đĽ WTF?
Turbo-charge those ripples! Nash & Corner (2016) say: stage Q&As, oďŹer follow-ups, create spaces where people donât just feel but figure out whatâs next. Place things carefully.
Like Blood, Sweat and Takeaways. The BBC made a public web forum; viewers swapped tips, vented, planned. A âhub for people⌠discussing what we can do about itâ (Christie-Miller, 2010 in Clarke et al., 2025). Now weâre taking.
Yes, itâs small. But thatâs the point. Ripples grow networks, cement injustices in public memory.
And sometimes? They spark real-world wins. Activism is inspired.
Corporations can change. Mangetout + advocacy groups helped push Tesco into the Ethical Trading Initiative. Activists can be recruited. Girl Model saw one model-turned-activist pushing for legal reform.
Activism comes in all shapes: unionising, voting, campaigning, piling on pressure. More points of attack, stronger the punch. As Young (2003) reminds us: weâre all actors in this tangled system, each holding a sliver of responsibility.
The goal? Workers pay and conditionsimprove. But real change is slow, messy, and hard to pin down (LeBaron et al., 2022). No quick wins. Still, it beats flimsy âimpactâ stickers corporations love to flash and bury (Evans, 2020; Bohyn, 2025).
You wonât topple capitalism with a camera. But you can expose its cracks, pressure corporations to clean up, and – crucially – nurture a culture that refuses to forget. Wright (2015) spells it out: canât topple it? Tame it (regulate). Escape it (build alternatives). Erode it (grow co-ops, unions).
Change is a marathon, not a sprint. Your film? One hell of a starting gun. đĽ
SOURCES
Patricia Aguiar, Jorge Vala, Isabel Correia & Cicero Pereira (2008) Justice in our world & in that of others: belief in a just world & reactions to victims. Social Justice Research, 21, 50-68.
Theo Barker, Joe Collier, Annabel Baker, Lizzie Coppen & Henry Eve (2025) UDITA (ARISE). (followthethings.com/udita.shtml last accessed 2 May 2025)
Clive Barnett & David Land (2007) Geographies of generosity: beyond the âmoral turnâ. Geoforum 38(6), 1065-1075.
Tim Bartley & Curtis Child (2014) Shaming the corporation: the social production of targets & the anti-sweatshop movement. American sociological review 79(4) 653â679
+26 sources
HÊlène Bohyn (2025) Omnibus Or Not, Due Diligence Is a Must: Policy Breakdown. Better Cotton, 31 March (https://bettercotton.org/omnibus-or-not-due-diligence-is-a-must-policy-breakdown/ last accessed 22 April 2025)
Gavin Brown & Jenny Pickerill (2009) Space for emotion in the spaces of activism. Emotion, Spaceand Society 2(1), 24-35
Stella Bruzzi (2018) From innocence to experience: the representation of children in four documentary films. Studies in documentary film 12(3), 208â224
Rosemary Campbell-Stephens (2021) Educational leadership & the Global Majority: decolonising narratives. Springer Nature.
Doyle Canning & Patrick Reinsborough (2012) Lead with sympathetic characters. (https://beautifultrouble.org/toolbox/tool/lead-with-sympathetic-characters last accessed 2 May 2025)
Lilie Chouliaraki (2010) Post-humanitarianism: humanitarian communication beyond a politics of pity. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(2), 107â126.
Harriet Clarke, Ben Thomson, Victoria Bartley, Katie Ibbetson-Price, Emma Christie-Miller & Harry Schofield (2025) Blood, Sweat & Takeaways. (followthethings.com/blood-sweat-takeaways.shtml last accessed 2 May 2025)
Ian Cook et al (2025) Mangetout. (followthethings.com/mange-tout.shtml last accessed 2 May 2025)
Ian Cook & Tara Woodyer (2012) Lives of things. in Eric Sheppard, Trevor Barnes & Jamie Peck (eds) The Wiley Blackwell companion to economic geography. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 226-241
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Benjamin CuďŹ, Sarah Brown, Laura Taylor & Douglas Howat (2016) Empathy: a review of the concept. Emotion Review, 8(2), 144-153.
Stephen Duncombe (2023) A theory of change for artistic activism. The journal of aesthetics and artcriticism 81(2), 260-268
Alice Evans (2020) Overcoming the global despondency trap: strengthening corporate accountability in supply chains. Review of International Political Economy, 27(3), 658-685
Adele Hambly, Elaine King, Andy Keogh, Camilla Renny-Smith, Ed Callow, Joe Thorogood & Vicky Alloy (2025) Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour. (followthethings.com/girl-model.shtml last accessed 2 May 2025)
Irene Hadiprayitno and Sine Bagatur (2022) Trade Justice, Human Rights, and the Case of Palm Oil. in Elena V. Shabliy, Martha J. Crawford & Dmitry Kurochkin (eds) Energy Justice:Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 157-172
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Erik Olin Wright (2015) How to be an anticapitalist today. Jacobin, 12 February
Ilha das Fores Girl model Mangetout Blood, sweat & takeaways UDITA Ghosts Primark – on the rack
INGREDIENTS
INTENTIONS
Pop the bubble Show capitalist evils End violence & exploitation
TACTICS
Follow the people Flip the script Spend some time Tell the truth Show both sides Make it funny Workers take the mic Juxtapose extremes Hold ’em accountable
RESPONSES
These consumers are insane I laughed my ass off This is disgusting Guilty as charged I gotta do something Silence your critics
IMPACTS
Corporations are punished
“Just showing up – again and again – can be the start of something.”
By Jock MacKinlay
IN BRIEF
Student Jock MacKinlay has taken the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module at the University of Exeter. He’s been watching trade justice documentaries, analysing the comments on their followthethings.com pages, and making sense of them using a draft copy of ‘The followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’. He knows a thing or two about how trade justice documentaries work and what they can do. He reflects on what he’s learned about how these films work and what they can do. He centres capitalism’s commodification of objects and people, how filmmakers and their subjects can turn grief into power, and how this work can gently and persuasively unravel the logic of global trade.
More about this page.
We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called The ginger trail). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?
What makes a trade justice documentary effective isnât just what it shows – itâs how it brings you into complicity. A tomato in Ilha das Flores. A child raising a Tesco flag in Mangetout. These arenât just images. Theyâre arguments. And they donât plead for change – they implicate. Iâve come to believe that the most powerful trade justice documentaries donât persuade. They disrupt. They use irony, juxtaposition, grief, silence, repetition, and time to make global injustice unmissable – and unbearable.
Across this reflection, alongside learning from follow-the-things (2025) I draw on seven films from the module and analyse their techniques using ingredient phrases, emotional reactions, and viewer responses drawn from followthethings.com. I explore how films confront trade injustice – the structural exploitation baked into global supply chains that privilege profit and ownership over worker dignity (Chellan, 2023; Cook et al., 2002). Because if a documentary wants to challenge that system, it canât just inform. It has to implicate. Thatâs the kind of effectiveness Iâm tracing here
Commodification: objects and people
One way in which trade justice documentaries can be effective is by showing capitalist evils not through spectacle, but through logic – systems that make exploitation feel routine. Ilha das Flores made me laugh at first. The narration traced a tomatoâs journey from plantation to middleman to supermarket shelf. It was absurd in its neatness – every movement tracked, measured, rationalised. But then came the landfill. The tomato was discarded, fed to a pig, and finally scavenged by children. By juxtaposing extremes, the film folds waste đŽ, animal đ, and human đđ˝ into the same supply chain. One viewer said: âI just felt like being sick⌠people who have to sift through garbageto find foodâ (Redroom Studios in Pavalow, 2025).𫣠I felt the same – but not because of the image. This is disgusting, I thought, because it felt so coldly logical – sicking not in tragedy, but routine.
Screenshots from Ilha das Flores.
Ryynänen et al. (2022) argue that disgust isnât just emotional – itâs a moral alarm that ruptures what we accept as normal. This wasnât an image designed to horrify. It became horrifying because I recognised it too late. Bloomfield and Sangalang (2014) describe juxtaposition as a âvisual argumentâ – a structure that forces the viewer to connect what theyâd rather keep apart. The film doesnât explain the logic. It makes you feel it. Chellan (2023) helped me make sense of that discomfort: capitalism isnât just cruel by accident. Itâs a system that âprivileges ownership over life.â Ilha das Flores doesnât accuse. It implicates.
Girl Model continues this logic through quiet observation. Nadya, thirteen, is sized, and measured. Thereâs no voiceover. No commentary. Just a girl turned product. By following the people, the film shows how global capitalism doesnât just move things – it moves bodies. âThey are commodities.Easily replaceableâ đŞ (Dowling in Hambly et al., 2025). I agreed – and thatâs what disturbed me.đ Wenzel (2011) calls this a âcommodity biographyâ: a mapped transformation from subject to stock. I didnât feel pity. I wasnât the only one who felt guilty as charged, others agreed with me on followthethings.com âeveryperson⌠[is] a collaborator or perpetrator of a⌠soul-sucking enterpriseâ (Anon, 2012e in Hambly et al., 2025). Not because I caused this – but because we all see models in every advert ever!!! Young (2003) calls this political responsibility: the moment you realise youâre inside the structure.
Screenshots from Girl Model.
Whose pain are we watching?
If Section 1 left me wondering why I hadnât noticed the violence sooner, these films show what happens when trade justice documentaries make that distance impossible to ignore – when they pop the bubble between comfort and consequence. In Mangetout, we begin at a Home Counties dinner party. Guests sip wine, eating mangetout, and debate âfairnessâ like itâs an abstract puzzle. Then, without warning, we cut to a Grannie, a Zimbabwean mangetout sorter discussing her suicide attempt. Sheâs calm. Precise. Not pleading – just speaking. By showing both sides, the film draws an initial equivalence between Global North opinion and Global South reality – but then cracks it open. One reviewer called it âthe short and simple annals of the poor intercut with achampagne-fuelled dinner partyâ (Banks-Smith 1997 in Cook et al, 2025)
Screenshots from Mangetout.
I agreed – but for me, it wasnât just contrast. It was interruption. Thatâs what makes this technique effective – it shifts focus from guilt to voice. It asked who gets the last word. Cook et al. (2002) describe commodities as âeconomic DNAâ – the buried trace of hands and histories. Mangetout doesnât just reference that. It shows it. The peas arenât just served. Theyâre stitched to lives. Thatâs what it means to pop the bubble: to let the dinner table speak back. Valenti (2020) warns that âbalanceâ can become distortion when all voices arenât equally free to speak. And by flipping thescript, the film resists pity. The worker isnât reduced to pain. Her voice carries its own narrative – one that didnât need translation. Siddiqi (2009) calls this a refusal of âglobal moralismâ – a rejection of pity and a reclamation of voice, where workers donât need saving, just listening.
Blood, Sweat & Takeaways overwhelmed me in a different way. The British volunteers are exhausted. They break down in the factories. Cry into their hands. Scream at each other. Theseconsumers are insane, I thought – not because they couldnât cope, but because their breakdowns became the story. One reviewer nailed it: âignorance and insouciance is the important flavour hereâŚthe BBC has carefully sifted all the good apples out to leave us only with the spoiled onesâ (Sutcliffe 2009 in Clarke et al., 2025). Exactly. It didnât feel like we were watching transformation. It felt like punishment – and the workers became props in that performance. Wood (2020) calls this âemotional optimisationâ: where Western pain takes centre stage, and the system itself fades. It left me frustrated, not moved.
Screenshots from Blood, Sweat & Takeaways.
Grief into power
But not every film works through contrast. Some stay – showing what happens after the worst has already occurred. One way trade justice documentaries can be effective is by seeking to endviolence and exploitation not through shock, but through duration – by staying with grief long enough for it to organise. In UDITA, we see two children walking through the wreckage of Rana Plaza. They see clothing in the rubble, labelled. Each tag still reads âMade in Bangladesh.â Later, their grandmother Razia stands among a crowd of women, fists raised, chanting for justice. One reviewer captured this transformation: â[Razia] now has to care for her daughterâs children⌠theywalk over the rubble⌠each one has a Western labelâ (Anon 2015b in Barker et al., 2025). I kept noticing those labels. They werenât just part of the debris – they were the thread connecting Raziaâs grief to my comfort. That scene broke me đŤ đ- not because it was loud, but because it wasnât. Thatâs what makes it effective: it invites presence, not pity.
Screenshots from UDITA.
Thatâs why this film works. It doesnât just drop in to extract stories. It spends some time. Filmed over five years, UDITA captures the slow work of building trust – between filmmaker and subject, between worker and union. Robertson (2005) calls this âpresence as methodâ – not just seeing, but staying. The camera doesnât race. It follows Razia at a walking pace – into homes, into the streets, into grief. Evans (2020) describes this kind of duration as a way to break the âdespondency trapâ: when change feels impossible, just showing up – again and again – can be the start of something – exactly!!
Ghosts struck differently. The camera doesnât narrate. It just watches Ai Qin, a real undocumented migrant worker, re-enact the moment of her survival. She stands on the roof of a white van as the tide rises, calling her son from the very bay where others drowned. I gotta do something, I thought. But it wasnât guilt. It was something closer to reverence. âI wonât easily forget the shot of Ai QinâŚ[North Sea] waves about to engulf the van⌠making a final call to her sonâ (Sandhu 2007 in Allen et al, 2025). I couldn’t agree more – because it explained the scene, but because it admitted how unforgettable it was. That final call felt like it was for us. Richardson-Ngwenya and Richardson (2013) describe this as ethical representation: workers take the mic not through speech alone, but through presence. The silence becomes the point.
Screenshots from Ghosts.
Unravel capitalism
But grief doesnât just stay personal. Some films turn their lens toward systems – and ask who gets to speak when the damage is done. Effective trade justice documentaries aim to hold corporationsaccountable â – not just by criticising them, but by showing how they fall short of ethical practice. In Mangetout, thereâs a scene that almost dares you to laugh: the Tesco flag being raised, while schoolchildren sing the Tesco song đśđśđś âTesco our dear friendâ đśđśđś and dance the Tesco dance. âItâs not just bizarre,â I remember thinking.âItâs dystopian.â đ˝đ˝ One reviewer described it bluntly: âThe Tesco flag was raised while children sang the Tesco song and danced the Tescodanceâ (Holt 1997 in Cook et al., 2025). Itâs funny until you realise the brand is being treated like a country – with rituals, pledges, even propaganda. The scene never tells us what to think. It just lets the lie speak.
Screenshots from Mangetout.
Thatâs the tactic: tell the truth by letting performance unravel itself. Bartley & Child (2014) argue that when corporations become the subject of focused critique – especially ones wrapped in ethical branding – theyâre vulnerable to targeted shaming. Mangetout never yells. It just watches. The effect is stronger than accusation. Cook et al. (2015) describe this kind of visual strategy as one that turns âspectacle into satireâ – without needing to say a word. They make it funny. The scene made me flinch – Tesco, this is disgusting. Then I laughed my ass off. Then I felt guilty as charged. So effective – because it didnât instruct. It implicated. It made me ask why this had ever felt normal.
Primark: On the Rack hits differently. It shows what happens when corporations donât just deny wrongdoing – they try to silence their critics. In response to the BBCâs undercover footage surrounding child labourers, Primark didnât quietly back away. They launched an aggressive counter-narrative. âMillions of people have been deceived by Panorama,â one spokesperson declared. âTeachers and pupils⌠have been badly let downâ (Primark 2008 in Adley et al., 2025). That tone stuck with me – not because it was firm, but because it felt scolding. Like they werenât responding to a crisis – just punishing someone for pointing it out. Thatâs what it means to silenceyour critics: not to rebut, but to erase. Cook et al. (2018) call this the âStreisand effectâ – where trying to bury a critique only makes it louder. It backfired. Corporations are punished not always in court, but through public exposure. And the louder the denial, the more visible the problem becomes.
Screenshots from Primark – on the rack.
Concluding thoughts
What Iâve learned is that effective trade justice documentaries donât just expose injustice – they make it undeniable. Not with guilt, but with structure. With editing, juxtaposition, silence, re-enactment, and time. The most effective films donât preach – they disorient. They hold back. They let injustice implicate itself. When I first watched Ilha das Flores, I thought the image of a woman scavenging waste would shock me. It didnât. The shock came from the voiceover â that cold, rational tracking of a tomatoâs value. That was my first lesson: effective trade justice films donât just show harm – they reveal the logic behind it.
That logic reappears across the films that stayed with me: a model commodified, a corporation mythologised, a migrant re-enacting her own pain. None of these scenes told me what to feel. They let the structure speak – and made me realise I was part of it. If I were to make a trade justice documentary now, Iâd focus less on persuading, more on positioning. Iâd start with the worker. Iâd spend time. Iâd resist neat conclusions. Because effectiveness isnât clarity – itâs complexity.
Thatâs what these films offered me: not closure, but craft. Not answers, but better questions. And a deeper understanding of how form can confront power – and why it must.
SOURCES
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Robertson, R. (2005) Seeing is believing: an ethnographerâs encounter with television documentary. in A. Grimshaw & A. Ravetz (eds) Visualizing anthropology. Bristol: Intellect Books, p.42â54
Ryynänen, M., Kosonen, H. & YlÜnen, S. (2023) From visceral to the aesthetic: tracing disgust in contemporary culture. in their (eds.) Cultural Approaches to Disgust and the Visceral. London: Routledge, p.3-16
Siddiqi, D.M. (2009) Do Bangladeshi factory workers need saving? Sisterhood in the post-sweatshop era? Feminist Review 91(1), p.154â174
Valenti, J.M. (2020) When environmental documentary films are journalism. in Sachsman D. & Valenti, J.M. (eds) Routledge handbook of environmental journalism. London: Routledge, p.99-112
Wenzel, J. (2011) Consumption for the common good? Commodity biography film in an age of postconsumerism. Public Culture 23(3), p.573â602
Wood, R., (2020) âWhat Iâm not gonna buyâ: Algorithmic culture jamming and anti-consumer politics on YouTube. New Media & Society 23(9), p.2754â2772
Young, I.M. (2003) From guilt to solidarity: sweatshops & political responsibility. Dissent 50(2), 39-44
Flip the script Workers take the mic Find the unions Join with others Encourage feminist solidarities Find a character Spend some time Include suffering kids Juxtapose extremes Make it incomplete Make Music Encourage curiosity Encourage detective work Make it funny
RESPONSES
These people are inspiring I’m humming that music I laughed my ass off I’m so angry This is so sad I just cried This is disgusting Creeperific I get what it’s like I gotta do something
IMPACTS
Now I know Now weâre talking I shop differently now Audiences are empowered
“It’s funny how you can be so angry at someone who is just doing their job.”
By Katie Smart
IN BRIEF
Student Katie Smart has taken the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module at the University of Exeter. She’s been watching trade justice documentaries, analysing the comments on their followthethings.com pages, and making sense of them using a draft copy of ‘The followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’. She knows a thing or two about how trade justice documentaries work and what they can do. She imagines meeting a filmmaker who’s thinking of making one of these films for the first time. He’s called Dan. He asks if she can give him some advice. She guesses he wants to present the hardships of Global South workers to Global North audiences. To do this, you’ve got to make it relevant, choose your audience, engage the right emotions, and make it memorable, she says.
More about this page.
We are slowly piecing together a followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism and are publishing draft pages here as we write them. This is an ‘advice’ page. The main text is an example of student work from the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module which followthethings.com CEO Ian ran at the University of Exeter in the 2024-25 academic year. Students watched 8 films, and read their pages on followthethings.com (with the expeption of an unfinished film called From Indiaâs ginger fields to the table). They were asked to pair the comments brought together on each of the films’ followthethings.com pages with the appropriate ingredients phrases (naming their intentions, tactics, responses and impacts – show in bold below) being drafted for the Handbook. Using these phrases as a pattern language (see FAQs), students were tasked to work out how specific intentions (e.g. improve workers’ pay & conditions) needed specific tactics (e.g. flip the script) to generate different kinds of responses (e.g. this is disgusting), which could generate different kinds of impacts (e.g. audiences are empowered). [NB pages about each of these ingredients are coming soon] At the end of the module, students were asked to imagine that they had met someone who was about to make their first trade justice documentary. Drawing on what they had learned in the module, what advice could they give them on how to make it effective?
đ Hiya Dan!
You want to make a trade justice documentary???
Well, from what Iâve learnt in a Trade Justice module this year, your goal should be achieving two key outcomes: A) improve workersâ pay and conditions in the Global South, and B) change consumer behaviour in the Global North. These objectives are intertwined and can be approached through targeted filmmaking strategies.
First: check out Duncombeâs (2023) book . Itâs all about theories of change and will give you the tools you need to make your documentary as impactful as possible. There are two main strategies you can use to achieve both A and B:
For A – use a materialist theory of change-this means seizing the âmeans of productionâ (Duncombe, 2023, p. 265) – here you could focus on the workers’ control over their own labour in the Global South.
For B – go with an activist theory of change-targeting emotions to âstir up the massesâ (Duncombe, 2023, p. 265).
Iâll walk you through how various techniques can be used to empower workers in the Global South and spark emotional engagement in the Global North, to drive social change in Trade Justice.
Stage 1: make it relevant
Before diving into audience specifics, think about how you can ensure its relevance to the social context. This worked for Ilha das Flores, cuz it appeared during Brazilâs âdemocratization periodâ (Trujillo in Pavalow, 2025, np). The filmmaker, Furtado, could capture social issues when the audience was receptive to them, so that he could make a doc about social injustices.
Screenshot from Ilha das Flores.
But relevance alone wonât make your documentary effective. For instance, if you wanted to make a doc about Global South trade injustices, a topic like Trump and his tariffs threatening global supply chains might have to be watered down to comply with regulations for mainstream TV. Ilha das Flores works cuz it breaks from convention. weird!!! Furtado made it funny. The line in the screenshot above is both hilarious (I laughed my ass off) and random. Furtado can make a serious point about capitalist exploitation while entertaining; âfunny at first, demolishing in the endâ (TrufĂł in Pavalow, 2025, np).
This is SO effective cuz humour sparks public discussion better than âserious or emotional appealsâ (Morreall in Cameron, 2015, p. 278). Conversations about their own complicity in global capitalist systems. Now weâre talking. If you want your documentary to be impactful AND be picked up by mainstream TV, make it current and make it funny to highlight the absurdities in supply chains.
Stage 2: choose your audience
Screenshot from the draft Handbook.
Now, decide who to engage, and how. If your intention is to educate workers and improve their pay and conditions in the Global South, centre the documentary on them. If workers see others fighting for their rights, theyâre empowered to act.
Take UDITA, for example. The filmmakers flip the script and workers take the mic. Women, garment workers, and trade union activists are at the âcentre of [the] filmâ (Anon in Barker et al., 2025, np), encouraging feminist solidarities.
As Duncombe (2023) speaks about in his Materialist Theory of Change, it is the material realities of workersâ lives that spur them into action. UDITA brings this theory to life; we see workers empower themselves – not just learning but fighting against âunsafe conditionsâ (Crawford in Barker et al 2025, np). The protagonist explains that five years ago the wage was $9/month; now itâs $68/month through campaigns. Your audience may resonate with unfairness and want to transform their own realities.
If you wanted to document the Bangladeshi protests over Trumpâs tariffs, show whatâs already happening to be effective for your intended audience. Show how material conditions, like uncertainty, are catalysts for organising. Find the unions, join with others that are already doing the same. Capture the âgrassroots resistanceâ (Hoskins in Barker et al., 2025, np). YOU can help to apply pressure by documenting the ongoing struggle and building solidarity with these efforts.
In Bangladesh, document unions like the âNational Garment Workers Federationâ pushing for better conditions (Hoskins in Barker et al., 2025, np). Support the âTrade Justice Movementâ of the Global South (Bannister and Bergan, 2023, p. 3). By showing workers that their fight can lead to change, theyâll think, âthese people are inspiringâ!! Audiences become empowered. The viewer could join a union themselves by seeing how collective bargaining can transform their realities.
Screenshot of UDITA’s viewing data from YouTube.
BUT if your intention is to educate workers, are you sure theyâll even see the documentary? UDITA is on YouTube-accessible to anyone with a smartphone, which is lots of people nowadays. BUT ⌠UDITA has low views. As Nora put it, “Iâm so angry!!… UDITA needs more views!” (Nora in Barker et al., 2025, np). While itâs easy to make a doc accessible, getting the right people to watch it is a different challenge.
Primark – on the rack reached â4.2 million viewersâ (Dowell in Adley et al., 2025, np). Good for awareness, BUT if your goal is to educate workers, think about âbreadthâ vs. âdepthâ (Duncombe, 2024, p. 71). Reaching millions is fine, but if theyâre not the right people, impact is limited. Which are YOU aiming for?
Stage 3: engage the right emotions
If you choose to target a Global North audience, you need to think about how to engage them. You need to spark the right emotions- but avoid pity or sadness. From my Global North perspective, those emotions are passive and donât drive real engagement.
Films like Girl Model and Primark – on the rack encourage empathy by:
Find a character -> spend some time -> include suffering kids
But does including children evoke the right emotions for activism (Brown and Pickerell, 2009)? Girl Model [left] shows âminorsâ in the exploitative modelling industry (Edelson in Hambly et al., 2025) …
Screenshot of 13 year old Siberian model Nadya Vall, the central character in Girl Model
while Primark – on the rack shows children working on garments (BBC Trust in Adley et al., 2025, np).
Screenshot of two unnamed children in India sewing sequins onto tops in Primark – on the rack.
Itâs hard not to feel something when you see children suffering, to empathise with their vulnerability, understand the world from their perspective (Krzanic, 2007). I was once young. The close-up shots help us to read their emotions too.
But empathy fades fast cuz the distance between myself, an able-bodied, privileged person-and these kids is huge!! I donât get what itâs like. Iâm feeling âfor themâ (Keen in NĂĽls, 2018, p. 145) not with them. Sympathy. Chouliaraki (2010) says victim-oriented campaigns turn the sufferer into an object we contemplate from afar. Us vs. Them. You canât just show a victim, Dan, cuz look at the implications this has on Girl Modelâs followthethings.com page: @DisturbedPixie, how is giving âNadia a hugâ (in Hambly et al., 2025, np) going to help in the grand scheme of activism? AWWWWWW. This is so sad. But sympathy canât motivate action. Was I moved? Yes. Empowered? No. I just cried. I gotta do something. But what đ¤ ?
You HAVE to move emotions from âaffective to ĂŚffectiveâ (Duncombe, 2024, p. 46) – turning empathy into action. Otherwise, the film risks being an emotional spectacle without real impact.
So, Dan, evoke deep, âhigh-certaintyâ emotions, like anger and disgust (Kemp, 2025, p. 46), choose to shock and disrupt (Duncombe, 2024). How? Start by finding the right character. Shift your gaze from the teenage models to Ashley Arbaugh, the ex-model-turned-scout in Girl Model. She hides her camera to take non-consensual photos of girls. This is disgusting – creeperific.
Screenshot of a collection of photos taken by model scout Ashley Arbaugh in Girl Model.
Disgust is âvisceralâ (Ryynänen et al., 2023, p. 3) – something you feel. Going beyond âAWWWWâ for these girls, it unsettles you. Just the thought of Ashley still makes me squirm đ¤˘. Thatâs how you make a documentary that matters. I feel it. Itâs memorable. For me, now I know. Disgust makes me rethink my consumer habits and drives me to support ethical brands. Feeling disgust at exploitative practices means I can no longer ignore my complicity. I shop differently now. Want to apply this approach? Look for an exploitative figure in the Bangladeshi unions. Spend time with them. If you capture something that sparks disgust, itâll engage your audience. It worked in Girl Model – give it a try!
Stage 4: make it memorable
Screenshots from the Handbook.
Another way to make it stick is to make it memorable. You could make music. I didnât think âhumming that musicâ would be a response to Mangetout, which explores the journey of mangetout from Zimbabwe to a dinner party in London. But here I am months later, still remembering every word from the kidsâ performance for Tescoâs inspectors đś âDown the valley, up the mountain / Tescoâs our dear friend!â đś (Holt in Cook et al., 2025, np).
The tune didnât âstop in silenceâ (Williamson & Jilka, 2014, p. 653). It followed me home, reciting it at Easter. Cut from the performance…
Screenshots from Mangetout where Zimbabwean children sing to visiting Tesco buyer Mark Dady (in red).
âŚto Grannie, âthe farmâs âcaterpillar examinerâ explaining how she tried to kill herselfâ đą (OâMalley in Cook at al., 2025, np):
Screenshot from Mangetout of interview footage with caterpillar examiner Grannie.
Not so sweet anymore, is it, @Tongue? Me singing happily to myself at home only reminds me more of the exploitation-the unease lingers as the song is lodged. Iâm thinking about my role as a consumer. CleverâŚ
Another tactic to make ur doc memorable is juxtaposing extremes of people. This works because viewers must work hard to understand why you chose these contrasts, and that effort makes the message stick. In Mangetout, produce buyer Mark Dady, âthe great man from Tescoâ (Holt in Cook et al., 2025, np), struts in, while the farmers he âbulliedâ (Aaronovitch in Cook et al., 2025, np) praise him. Girl Model too uses a glaring contrast between Nadya and Ashley, placed on âopposite ends of the businessâ (Smith in Hambly et al., 2025, np). One is a vulnerable girl exploited for profit, the other a scout capitalising on that vulnerability. Itâs funny how you can be so angry at someone who is just doing their job. But the way their lives fit together is atrocious to the audience đ¤. This tactic can evoke anger – I spoke about strong emotions earlier. The hope is that these spark action (Kemp, 2025).
You can also make it memorable by doing something different. You can make it incomplete / encourage curiosity. As Cook (2015) argues, the excitement of discovering things for ourselves fuels curiosity and critical questions. An interatcive documentary called From Indiaâs ginger fields to the table by Bharath Ananthanarayana, did this. Ananthanarayana (in Ananthanarayana, 2025, np) wanted to encourage detective work đľď¸ââď¸. Like he had invented a game – Cluedo meets documentary. Two-minute clips where my classmates and I choose the sequence. Boje (in Connor and Phelan, 2013) developed an antenarrative approach, which Ananthanarayana uses. Through jumbled clips which unsettle âordered narrativesâ (Connor and Phelan, 2013, p. 150), Ananthanarayana documents the many stories circulating within the narrative. My first clip was âLabouring the Fieldâ (Ananthanarayana, 2025). One shot of digging đŞ, the only sound being the rhythmic thwack of labour.
Screenshot from the ‘Labouring in the field’ sequence in From Indiaâs ginger fields to the table.
Then, I chose a sequence called âHow It Beganâ. Wait-shouldnât this have come first? Nope. Ananthanarayana hands the audience choice of how the story unfolds. Thatâs influential: just like how I have the power to create the story of documentary, I have the power to choose how I source commodities in my life. Dan, if you want people like me to feel that urgency of âI gotta do somethingâ, you need to make them actively involved in the process – like Bharath did. Make them feel they have a part to play in changing the system.
By engaging the right emotions, you can create real impact. For me, I now know about the exploitation behind commodities like mangetout and girl models – that I had no clue about before. No longer ignorant. The deeper emotions inspired me to talk. Even this small step leads to change. Now weâre talking đŁď¸ đŹ. This is the impact you should aim for, Dan, cuz by sharing these films, the conversation passes through the âsocial realmâ (Heim, 2003, p. 187), raising awareness and demystifying exploitation. Even by talking/singing to my dad about Mangetout, Iâve pushed the conversation outside âtraditional art and activism worldsâ (Duncombe, 2024, p. 74).
So, see what you can achieve for workers in the Global South and audience members in the Global North audience by thinking about all these things. Let me know what approach you decide to take!
SOURCES
Adley, K., Keeble, R., Russell, P., Stenholm, N., Strang, W. & Valo, T. (2025) Primark â on the rack. (followthethings.com/primark-on-the-rack.shtml last accessed 28 March 2025).
Ananthanarayana, B. (2025) Untitled [Q&A video & transcript], GEO3123: Geographies of material culture. University of Exeter.
Bannister, L. & Bergan, R. (2023) A timeline of UK trade and trade justice. London: Trade Justice Movement.
Barker, T., Collier, J., Baker, A., Coppen, L. & Eve, H. (2025) UDITA (ARISE). (followthethings.com/udita.shtml last accessed 28 March 2025).
+16 sources
Brown, G. & Pickerell, J. (2009) Space for emotion in the spaces of activism. Emotion, Space & Society, 2, 24â35.
Cameron, J. D. (2015) Can poverty be funny? The serious use of humour as a strategy of public engagement for global justice. Third World Quarterly, 36(2), 274-290
Chouliaraki, L. (2010) Post-humanitarianism: humanitarian communication beyond a politics of pity. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(2), 107â126.
Connor, T. & Phelan, L. (2013) Antenarrative and Transnational Labour Rights Activism: Making Sense of Complexity and Ambiguity in the Interaction between Global Social Movements and Global Corporations. Globalizations, 12(2), pp. 149â163
Cook, I. (2015) Be curious. Find out. Do something. European Year of Development (https://web.archive.org/web/20150402052050/https://europa.eu/eyd2015/en/fashion-revolution/posts/be-curious-find-out-do-something last accessed 10 April 2025)
Cook, I., et al. (2025) Mangetout. (followthethings.com/mange-tout.shtml last accessed 28 March 2025).
Duncombe, S. (2023) A theory of change for artistic activism. The Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, 81, 260â268
Duncombe, S. (2024) Aeffect: The Affect and Effect of Artistic Activism. 1st ed. New York, NY: Fordham University Press.
Hambly, A., King, E., Keogh, A., Renny-Smith, C., Callow, E., Thorogood, J. & Alloy, V. (2025) Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour (followthethings.com/girl- model.shtml last accessed 28 March 2025).
Heim, W. (2003) Slow activism: homelands, love & the lightbulb. Sociological Review, 51(2), pp. 183-202.
Kemp, D. (2025) Comparing disgust and sadness: examining the interaction of emotion & information in charity appeals. Journal of Social Marketing (online early).
Krznaric, R. (2007) Empathy & the Art of Living. Oxford: Blackbird.
NĂĽls, J. (2018) The difficulty of eliciting empathy in documentary. in Brylla, C. & Kramer, M. (eds.) Cognitive Theory and Documentary. Oxford: Palgrave Macmillan, p.135-148.
Pavalow, M. (2025) Ilha das Flores. (followthethings.com/ilhadasflores.html last accessed 28 March 2025).
Ryynänen, M., Kosonen, H. & YlÜnen, S. (2023) From visceral to the aesthetic: tracing disgust in contemporary culture. in their (eds.) Cultural Approaches to Disgust and the Visceral. London: Routledge, p.3-16.
Williamson, V. & Jilka, S. (2014) Experiencing earworms: an interview study of involuntary musical imagery. Psychology of Music, 42(5), 653-670
Type: Protest & activist campaign Dates: 8 Sept 2005 & 1 Jan 2007 Organisers: Amnesty International, Reprieve, Save Omar Campaign, Birmingham Guantanamo Campaign, Muslim Public Affairs Committee Location: Hiatt & Co., Baltimore Road, Birmingham, UK
INGREDIENTS
INTENTIONS
Change government behaviour Change corporate behaviour
TACTICS
Target the right brand Hold ’em accountable Put your bodies in the way Embody exploitation Make the hidden visible
RESPONSES
There is no alternative Who’s responsible?
IMPACTS
Corporations change Workers suffer
Image credit
followthethings.com
Tackle the shackles
IN BRIEF
British citizens are detained in the USAâs Guantanamo Bay detention centre, but none are charged with a crime. They notice the shackles restraining them are âMade in Englandâ, just like them. When some go on hunger strike in 2005, and when the 5th anniversary of the centreâs opening takes place in 2007, musicians, doctors, lawyers, comedians and activists protest outside the factory where they are made. Their use at Guantanamo, they argue, is unethical and illegal.
How to read this page
We are slowly piecing together a ‘followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’ and are publishing the pages here as we write them. This is an ‘example’ page. The wide column paraphrases and condenses this example’s followthethings.com page, section by section. The narrow column contains some details about the commodity, some key facts about the activism that took place around it, and a list of its ‘ingredients’: its intentions, tactics, responses and impacts. These have been identified during the writing of this example page and, as more handbook pages are added, you will be able to click each one to read about it, and there will be links to other examples where we have found that ingredient, and a list of linked ingredients. This hypertext format, we believe, will help readers to understand how trade justice activism can work, and what it can do.
Original
Description
Human rights activists wearing Hiatt shackles protest outside Birmingham factory where they are made. A band plays on a flatbed truck as 20 people dressed in orange Guantanamo Bay jumpsuits dance the âShackle Shuffleâ. Comedian Mark Thomas, doctor David Nicholls, human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith and the brother of Omar Deghayes, a hunger-striking British detainee, climb up to speak. Media, police and locals watch them accuse Hiatt of being complicit in, and profiting from, this torture and illegal detention. 14 months later, 70 or 80 are back in orange to âcelebrateâ the fifth anniversary of Guantanamoâs opening. Sandy Mitchell, tortured in Saudi Arabia in Hiatt shackles, speaks and returns his shackles through the factoryâs letterbox. A birthday cake is made for Hiatt with a detainee inside. This old company made ân***er collarsâ for the slave trade. âIf William Wilberforce were aliveâ, Nicholls says, âheâd be standing here today, doing the Shackle Shuffle, saying âthis is outrageousââ. The UK government, with its âethical foreign policyâ, should press the US to charge the detainees with their crimes, or set them free.
Inspiration / process / methodology
The Three Piece Suit chains your hands in front of you and attaches to a waist belt. Another chain links the belt to your ankle where a foot-long chain ties both feet together so you can only shuffle, not walk. They can tie you to a ring in the floor, as you stand or squat, or to a ceiling or the top of a cage where you can hang, for hours. Each has âHiattâ, âMade In Englandâ stamped into it, British detainees told their lawyer, Stafford Smith. âIt was ironicâ, Moazzem Begg said, that they were âmade in England, just like me and himâ. Nicholls wrote to Hiatt to stop US sales while their goods were being used for torture. âThis is what happens when you donât answer your postâ, he said at the protest. In 2007, NGOs published media and campaign packs to coordinate actions and focus messages. Local MPs joined in. These protests were national news.
Discussions / responses
I’d love to see President Bush and Prime Minsiter Blair shackled outside the factory. A freedom of information request was refused as not in the âpublic interestâ. It wouldnât make a difference if Hiatt ceased production. Others would make shackles and Hiattâs employees would lose their jobs. If the factory shut, its new US owner Armor Holdings could blame the protestors. Factories were shutting all around. At least this one was still making things. And maybe the Guantanamo shackles were old stock, exported years ago, before the UK export ban. Maybe they started as legally-exported handcuffs and were modified in the US? Shackles arenât illegal there. We weren’t aware of supplying Guantanamo, Hiatt said. We do sell to the US Department of Defence but we’re not responsible for what they do with stuff, said Hiatt. They donât tell you to cuff someone to the top of a door, do they?
Impacts / outcomes
Hiattâs Birmingham factory shut in 2008 and 15 people lost their jobs. This followed a consolidation process by BAE Systems who bought Armor Holdings in July 2007. Production shifted to a Hiatt factory in New Hampshire, USA, nearer its customer base, to be stamped âMade in USA.â UK police bought Hiatt handcuffs on eBay. The Hiatt brand was dropped. Protestors were glad that one less British company was supplying equipment for use in Guantanamo.
Make the hidden visible Follow the thing Show the violence Add mood music
RESPONSES
LOL capitalism They aren’t experts It’s so badly made That’s racist I’m humming that music
IMPACTS
Now we’re talking Activism is publicised
Image credit
followthethings.com
Life of a bullet
IN BRIEF
Imagine you can follow the life of a bullet from sheet metal in a factory shot into the head of a child soldier, like a Point of View (POV) video game. These are the opening credits of the Nicholas Cage movie âLord of War,â set to Buffalo Springfieldâs 1960s counterculture song âFor what itâs worthâ. For some, this 3 minute CGI creation is the best part of the movie. For us, itâs the most brutally clear follow the thing example weâve found.
How to read this page
We are slowly piecing together a ‘followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’ and are publishing the pages here as we write them. This is an ‘example’ page. The wide column paraphrases and condenses this example’s followthethings.com page, section by section. The narrow column contains some details about the commodity, some key facts about the activism that took place around it, and a list of its ‘ingredients’: its intentions, tactics, responses and impacts. These have been identified during the writing of this example page and, as more handbook pages are added, you will be able to click each one to read about it, and there will be links to other examples where we have found that ingredient, and a list of linked ingredients. This hypertext format, we believe, will help readers to understand how trade justice activism can work, and what it can do.
Original
Description
Youâre sitting in front of the screen. The movie âLord of Warâ is about to start. Its star Nicholas Cage makes a short spech to camera. Then the music starts. Thereâs something happening here. What it is ainât exactly clear. Thereâs a man with a gun over there. Telling me I got to beware⌠Buffalo Springfieldâs 1966 song âFor what itâs worthâ. Playing over the opening credits. A three minute point of view (POV) mini-movie: the life story of a single bullet. You see what it sees. You hear what it hears. You are the bullet. Emerging from sheet metal in a Ukrainian factory and dying in the flesh of a Sierra Leone firefight. People along the way inspect, carry, load, fire and are killed by you. In the final slo-mo scene, you whiz down a street into the forehead, the brain, of a black African boy, a child soldier. He stands there, looking you in the eye as you career towards him. Death is the end product. The music stops. The credits fade to bloody red and black. Thrills give way to chills. The film starts with a bang.
Inspiration / process / methodology
Conceptualised by Andrew Niccol and overseen by Yann Blondel, it was built using Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) – XSI, Shake, After Effects, Photoshop, Matchmover – not by strapping a tiny camera to a bullet. Studying factories, they found bullet-making âinsanely complicatedâ and simplified it. Arms trade people might find it âinaccurateâ. Stephen Stills wrote the song after Hollywoodâs 1966 Sunset Strip curfew riots and it became a civil rights anthem for the Vietnam War. Blondel didnât have it in mind when the CGI was created. This jarring film and music combo nails the movieâs message: âviolence round the world begins and ends directly at your doorstepâ.
Discussions / responses
Itâs like a Bond intro. Or bowling alley graphics. An episode of âHow Itâs Madeâ. An NRA ad. âThe adventures of the little bullet who wanted to killâ. A magical journey from Russia to Africa. Seeing more of the world than I have. Bullets fear no death. I wish I was a bullet. Longest killcam ever. Wish mine played that song. A âmindblowingâ end. LOLz. He should have seen it coming. It was moving so slowly. Donât stand up in a battefield. Youâll get shot in the head. What an aim! Most bullets miss. Imagine how many bullets they had to follow to find the story they wanted. How did they strap a camera to it? Or is it CGI? That killing gave me a warm glow. It made me want to fire my BB gun. I like guns, but Iâm anti-ammo now. The killing of a child soldier, forced to fight? Yeah, but look closely. He had a gun too. Itâs like a POV game. But how many gamers have fired an actual gun? Or worked in a bullet factory? Do they know who these bullets kill? No! Itâs just a job, like any other. Gunnies will be mad. Bullets arenât made, shipped, loaded or shot like that. Itâs not a documentary. Itâs a movie. Enjoy it. Arms manufacturers should die this way. Bullets donât kill people, people do. The Russians give guns and ammo to spread communism, the US to spread democracy. White people make weapons for black people to kill each other. You could blame the âwhite manâ or get activist. Following the tradeâs money would be a better story. 10 years on, that CGI looks sooo bad. But the message is there. Donât shoot people in the face. Two fingers, repeatedly picking up the bullet. Men blankly peering at it along the way. Responsibility is collective. Whatâs that song?
Impacts / outcomes
What it showed was true, said Amnesty, Oxfam and the Internatonal Action Network on Small Arms. Audiences should sign their âcontrol armsâ petition, to press for an international arms treaty. My mates in the USA have been talking about it. Especially because the DVD has that spoof AK-47 advert on it.
Made in the Third World Managed in the First World
KEY FACTS
Type: Prank & movie clip. Date: August 2001 Creators: The Yes Men Location: University of Technology, Tampere, Finland Watch in: The Yes Men movie (2003)
Make a website Choose an audience Create a character Bring managers into view Make the familiar strange Embody exploitation Juxtapose extremes Lie to tell the truth Include the digital Make it funny
RESPONSES
My Hero! I laughed my ass off
IMPACTS
Can’t tell
Image credit
Assorted Fashion Industry Textiles â Assortment of beige tone colored pants (https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/assortment-beige-tone-colored-pants_66105704.htm#fromView=search&page=2&position=46&uuid=4f93b6cd-f230-48f0-bce8-48ec11bbaecd) by freepic (freepic) Modified August 2024
Employee Visualisation Appendage
IN BRIEF
The Yes Men set up a fake WTO website and offer Hank Hardy Unruh to speak at conferences on its behalf. A textile conferece in Finland take up the offer, and its audience watch him reveal a gold lame telematic suit with an inflatable phallus which allows managers to sense and manage the energies of remote sweatshop workers. Itâs an offensive and outrageous stunt. Will its audiences understand or remember the critique that it brings to life?
How to read this page
We are slowly piecing together a ‘followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’ and are publishing the pages here as we write them. This is an ‘example’ page. The wide column paraphrases and condenses this example’s followthethings.com page, section by section. The narrow column contains some details about the commodity, some key facts about the activism that took place around it, and a list of its ‘ingredients’: its intentions, tactics, responses and impacts. These have been identified during the writing of this example page and, as more handbook pages are added, you will be able to click each one to read about it, and there will be links to other examples where we have found that ingredient, and a list of linked ingredients. This hypertext format, we believe, will help readers to understand how trade justice activism can work, and what it can do.
Original
Description
Itâs time for Hank Hardy Unruhâs keynote. As a representative of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), he gives a detailed talk on the economic history of capitalism and slavery, arguing that – left to its own devives – slavery would have developed into todayâs system of remote sweatshop labour. What we are now facing, he says, is a worker management problem. The WTOâs solution is a skin-tight golden Management Leisure Suit. After its reveal, he inflates from his groin its Employee Visualisation Appendage. By transmitting information about levels of physical work from chips impanted in workersâ bodies to the screen on its tip and electrodes implanted in the managerâs body, he can gain rapport with workers and exercise real time control over them while engaging in healthy leisure actvities. With the WTOâs golden phalli, corporations could better control the Third World.
Inspiration / process / methodology
The Yes Men are an American activist duo and/or a genderless global network of 300 people who aim to reveal uncomfortable truths via whopping lies. They target the injustices of free market capitalism through pranks and public spectacles that combine amateurish impersonations, ridiculous exaggerations and a keen sense for news-making. The WTO is a target targets because of its colonial attitide and system of loans and regulations that export jobs to low wage, less regulated Third World economies for the benefit of First World corporations. In 1999, they set up a gatt.org1 website identical in design to the WTOâs but clearly supporting the anti-WTO Seattle protests of the time. Visitors thinking this was the real WTO could email Hank Hardy Unruh to speak at conferences, like the one in Finland. They created an absurd, overblown narrative and image of the WTO that audiences wouldnât easily forget. This golden phallus that could electrocute Third World workers was much less dangerous than the exploitative labour relations the WTO helped to establish and maintain. Accompanied by a film crew, the duo traveled to Finland. How would the organisers, the audience and the WTO respond? Applause? Laughter? Anger? Realisation? Calling security? All would be filmed for The Yes Men movie.
Discussions / responses
In the hall, there were gasps at the reveal and polite applause at the end. That was it. One offended delegate complained about the design of the suit, asking if it a more bra-like version could be made for female managers. Movie viewers speculated. Were the delegates puzzled, bored or zoned out? Were they politely tolerating this shambolic American idiot? Were some impressed or riled but refused to respond? And who were the Yes Men making fools of: the WTO or the delegates? In the conference hall, was this an epic comedy fail? Can satire change the world? Or does it just feel like that sometimes? You might remember that silly, offensive suit, but not the WTOâs evil deeds. If only its workings were better known, someone would challenge these lies at every turn. At the movies, The Yes Menâs intelligence, bravery, shambolic performance skills and regular-guyness were celebrated. People laughed their asses off and bounced their own jokes off this iconic scene. âMy next halloween costume.â âLeisure suit, bwhahaaâ.
Impacts / outcomes
After being ridiculed in the press for calling the Yes Menâs gatt.org parody âdeplorableâ, the WTO said nothing. The Yes Men shared free software for others to replicate and parody other organisaton and company websites. The Yes Men movie had impacts of its own.