Home & Auto – followthethings.com

“Red Dust“
A documentary film directed by Karin Mak in Mandarin and Sichuanhua with English subtitles
Trailer embedded above. Watch in full on Labournet TV here. Website here.

A woman called Ren leaves beautiful rural Sichuan, China to work in a nickel-cadmium rechargeable battery factory in the city of Huizhou. Thousands of women like her do this. It’s an exciting opportunity to life yourself and your family back home out of poverty. But it creates the kind of pool of surplus cheap labour that attracts foreign investors. After years working at a GP factory making batteries for Wa-Mart, Mattel and Toys R Us, Ren and her workmates have been poisoned by the red cadmium dust in the air. They aren’t told that there’s a risk that this could poison their internal organs, leave them breathless, give them frequent headaches and cause them to endure chronic pain. There’s no protective equipment. This poisoning affects what they can do with their lives, including whether it’s safe to have children. And the medicines are expensive, especially when your pay is so low. There’s a striking contract here between disposable workers and reusable batteries. Chinese female workers have historically been stereotyped as quiet and passive, but Ren and her workmates behave assertively in response to what’s happened to them. This is what attract’s American filmmaker Karin Mak to their story. She follows Ren and her friends Min, Fu and Wu as they find out more about cadmium poisoning, gather evidence and demand justice from local government and the battery manufacturer. What’s distinctive about this film is that it’s an early example of trade justice documentary filmmaking that humanises Chinese workers, and shows their resistance to the low pay and dangerous working conditions that are so well known otherwise. It doesn’t start from a consumer perspective. And it asks its viewers to take action, not as consumers but as citizens who can write to GP batteries. The text of the letter can be copied from the film’s website. This is Karin Mak’s thesis film, part of her studies in social documentation at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She’s the filmmaker who worked with SACOM to make their Those With Justice film (on our site here) three years previously. She’s not making this for mainstream consumption. She’s not worrying about its funding. She wants to portray these women’s struggles vividly and sympathetically.

Page reference: Alex Alonso, David Tagle and Jennifer Reis (2011) Red Dust. followthethings.com/red-dust.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes.

Posted on December 19, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

A Decent Factory

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Electronics

SHOW WHAT’S IMPOSSIBLE

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

SPEND SOME TIME

CULTIVATE RELATIONSHIPS

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

HOLD ‘EM ACCOUNTABLE

MAKE IT A MYSTERY

“A Decent Factory (alternative title Made in China)“
A documentary film directed by Thomas Balmès for Margot Films, Making Movies Oy, France 2, BBC Storyville & YLE
Film clip embedded above. Search online to stream the whole film here.

In the mid 2000s, the Finnish company Nokia was the world’s largest producer of mobile phones. French film-maker Thomas Balmès works moves to Finland and spends 18 months in the country before getting permission to follow its executive Hanna Kosinen and business ethics consultant Louise Jamison as they undertake the company’s first ‘ethical audit’ of a mobile phone factory in China. Hanna and Louise have been tasked by Nokia to see for themselves if and how the company can exercise its ‘corporate social responsibilities’ both to its shareholders and to its factory workers. After a detailed tour of the plant, and some challenging and moving interviews with some of its managers and young female factory floor staff (in their cramped dorm rooms), they have to write a report for Nokia about its CSR in practice. It’s not flattering. The factory isn’t reaching even the low Chinese government expectations about minimum wages and working conditions. In the early days of a technology which later became synonymous with appalling labour conditions (see our page on the 2010 iPad factory suicides here), there was a company, and some company executives, who wanted the people making their branded products to enjoy a decent standard of living. But when they visit – as Balmès’ film shows – they get a shock and start to wonder why their principles don’t seem to be possible in practice. Nokia’s managers are ‘walking a tightrope between profits and law’. They are disarmingly frank in front of the camera, until they find out that this isn’t a films solely for internal Nokia consumption. The film that Balmès produces is darkly funny and tragic, It ends with Hanna leaving the company to pursue a more ethical career, where she can make a difference. This is an important, insightful film. It brings corporate managers into view in vivid and candid ways. It’s not only the factory workers who are ‘humanised’. In this film, its corporate managers and their consultants whom audiences are invited to empathise with. The people employed, internally, to hold a company accountable. These executives are not just being interviewed for a ‘talking head’ perspectives and/or briefly followed around a production site (see our page on the BBC Mangetout documentary for comparison here). These executives are not being deliberately embarrassed or demonised. Audience members can see what they are tasked to do. The ethical principles they would like to see in practice. Where they go. Who they talk to. How this affects them emotionally. How their personal and company principles work out in practice. What this makes them think about their job, the company they work for, and its stated corporate values. And whether they can stomach the disappointment when reality bites, and the change that’s needed doesn’t seem possible?

Page reference: Thirii Myint & Chris Lee (2011) A Decent Factory. followthethings.com/a-decent-factory.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 29 minutes.

Posted on December 12, 2024January 8, 2025 by Mark

A Global Positioning System

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Electronics | Home & Auto

2006

UNBRANDED

GPS NAVIGATION ASSISTANT

SOURCED IN THE PHILIPPINES

SOURCED IN SOUTH KOREA

SOURCED IN SOUTH AFRICA

SOURCED IN ANGOLA

SOURCED IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

TAKE IT TO PIECES

TRACK & TRACE

FOLLOW THE THING

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

“A Global Positioning System“
A art work / animated film created by Melanie Jackson, first exhibited at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, UK.
Two screengrabs from the film are featured above. Watch it in full on the artist’s website here.

If you’re interested in finding out who makes your stuff, it’s important to make a strategic choice about what stuff is best to follow. Artist Melanie Jackson makes an excellent choice – what better to guide your way than the technology that helps to guide your way. An in-car GPS Navigation Assistant. The kind of device you could buy in the 2000s to stick to your dashboard. Type in the destination, and it would help you on your way, showing the route on screen. She gets some funding for a trip to China to visit a factory where they are assembled. But this isn’t anything like enough of the story of this thing. She looks into its in many many ingredients, and finds out where and by whom they are sourced. She reads news stories, collects photographs, and turn to drawing to bring all of these connections together into a 12 minute animated film. There’s something magical about animation. It’s obvious that animation is not an objective account of the life of a thing, but something that’s been imagined and made. Animation allows the complexities of trade to be conveyed in a way that would otherwise be impossible either because the scale of the task would be too enormous, or because permission would not be granted to access the industrial sites that matter. There’s a powerful argument that’s made about ‘follow the thing’ research that things can be – for these reasons – ‘unfollowable (see Hulme 2017). But animation – and other creative approaches to thing-following (click the ‘make the hidden visible’ tactic button) – provide means to work around this. This is a mind-blowing film. Its amazing what you can learn in 12 minutes!

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) A Global Positioning System. followthethings.com/a-global-positioning-system.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 20 minutes.

Posted on December 11, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Maquilapolis (City Of Factories)

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Home & Auto | Health & Beauty

MULTIPLE OTHER BRANDS

MANY OTHER COMMODITIES

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

EDUCATE WORKERS

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

SHOW THE VIOLENCE

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

BRING POLITICIANS INTO VIEW

SHOW HOW TO WIN

FIND & GIVE INSPIRATION

ENCOURAGE FEMINIST SOLIDARITIES

“Maquilapolis (City Of Factories)“
A participatory documentary film in Spanish with Spanish or English subtitles directed by Vicky Funari & Sergio de la Torre, with music by Pauline Oliveros with the Nortec Collective & John Blue for the Independent Television Service & CineMamás Film.
Trailer and pay-per-view stream embedded above. Search online for other streaming options here. Read the film transcript in English & Spanish here.

Carmen Duràn and Lourdes Lujàn work in Tijuana, the ‘city of factories’, on the Mexico-US border. They work in factories on the hill making televisions and other COMMODITIES for brands like Panasonic and Sony. These multinationals treat this city as a garbage can that their workers have to live in. How can they fight back, claim their rights, their humanity? They take part in a participatory filmmaking project with directors Vicky Funari and Sergio de la Torre. The directors have been working with a local collective of ‘promontoras’ including Carmen and Lourdes for years. They have planned this project together for years. There’s been some filmmaking training and the promontoras take camcorders into the places where they live and work. The films they make are full of personality and a close attachment to place. They document life from these factory workers’ perspective. They document the ways in which these multinationals treat them as workers – especially when they leave – and how they treat the place where they live – as a dump for industrial waste that ruins their environment and threatens their health. They document their campaigns to clean up toxic industrial waste. In the process audiences get to know Carmen and Lourdes, to empathise with them. But the film also contains some surprising and beautiful creative scenes – often made in place of the footage that’s impossible to take inside the factory – that look like performance art. They want to show the intimate, bodily connection between the labour they perform, the commodities you buy (or are treated with in hospital) and the brands that you may be familiar with. And there’s some specially commissioned film music, made with a local music collective and featuring sounds from the factories. This is a gem of a film for anyone interested in trade justice activism. This is the film – with caveats – that these Mexican factory workers wanted to make and to show to the world. It’s one of the most intimate place-based examples featured on our site. And it was shown, deliberately, to audiences of workers either side of the US-Mexico border. Seeing empowered women like themselves struggling, resisting was an inspiration to many other women. And when the film hit the film festival circle, and there were panel screenings, the promontoras were there, answering questions alongside the directors.

Page reference: Rosie Buller, Melanie Bonner, Rebecca Lyons, Georgie Little, Tilman Schulzklinger & Jennifer Hart (2020) Maquilapolis (City Of Factories). followthethings.com/maquilapolis-city-of-factories.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 86 minutes.

Posted on December 6, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Mirror

followthethings.com
Health & Beauty | Home & Auto

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

TAKE IT TO PIECES

FIND LOST RELATIONS

EMBODY EXPLOITATION

BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

REDESIGN THE COMMODITY

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

MAKE IT META

MAKE IT SNAPPY

“Mirror“
Undergraduate coursework written by Lucinda Lawrence.

The students’ first task in the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module at the University of Exeter is to make a personal connection between their lives and the lives of others elsewhere in the world who made the things they buy. These are the people who help you to be you, followthethings.com CEO Ian tells them. So choose a commodity that matters to you, that’s an important part of your identity, that you couldn’t do without. Think about its component parts, its materials, and the properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming it’. And write a 500 word first person account that connects your lives. One student – Lucinda Lawrence – creates the most ‘meta’ example we have ever seen. It’s about a mirror that she bought in a market. It’s about the science and ingredients of mirrors. It’s about the people who mine its ingredients. Like tin. It’s about who you see when you look in the mirror, who helps you to be you. And – aaaand – she submits two things. A piece of paper with some typed writing on it. And a mirror. The writing has been reversed, so it can only be read in the mirror. And the mirror has a message written in red lipstick on its surface. ”If you fall, no one’s gonna carry you out (Rubin Age 13)’ (Cook 2007, p,2).’ It’s a fantastic piece of work. But you’ll need a mirror to read it. It’s worth the effort! When we showed this at an academic conference, one member of the audience called it ‘conceptual art’.

[If you want more ‘who I see in the mirror’ trade justice activism, see our page on a short film called Handprint here]

Page reference: Lucinda Lawrence (2009) Mirror. followthethings.com/mirror.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes.

Posted on December 2, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Crude: The Real Price Of Oil

followthethings.com
Home & Auto

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

TRANSLATE & SUBTITLE

MAKE A WEBSITE

STREISAND EFFECT

“Crude: The Real Price Of Oil“
A documentary film directed & produced by Joe Berlinger for First Run Features.
Trailer & pay per view stream embedded above. Search online for other streaming options here. Watch clips on the film’s YouTube channel here. Check its website here.

30,000 people living in Ecuador’s remote Amazon rainforest are taking out a US$27 billion class action suit against oil giant Chevron in the US over the dumping of toxic waste that has (allegedly) ruined their environment, livelihoods and health. Filmmaker Joe Berlinger hears about the case from the plaintiff’s US attorney and visits Ecuador to see what’s happening. He sees a gathering of indigenous people preparing a meal from canned tuna – unable to fish in their own water because its toxicity has killed or diseased any fish they might catch. The US oil giant Texaco had been drilling for oil here since the 1960s, and had allegedly dumped 18 billion gallon of toxic wastewater in the environment. Chevron had bought Texaco many years later so bought this responsibility too. Berlinger can’t imagine what his documentary will look like, or how it will appeal to audiences, until he meets an Ecuadorian oilfield labourer-turned-lawyer called Pablo Farjado who is working on the case. He’s the hero Berlinger needs, and he films without funding for a year (another two follow, after funding is secured). To join the dots in this case, he visits multiple places and talks to people who speak multiple languages. He films the trial, giving equal credence to the prosecution and the defence. He wants the audience to act as the jury, making up their own minds about the case. The film has fascinating twists, like the celebrities who get involved – most notably Trudie Styler and Sting – who help to turn what could have been a local news story into an international ’cause célèbre’. Once the film is released nationwide in the USA – even though the case is not resolved – it’s described as tragic, light, and comedic thriller because of its characters and unexpected twists and turns. One reviewer describes the film as ‘one of the most extraordinary legal dramas of our time’. Chevron’s lawyers and scientists have their say on screens, but audiences don’t warm to them. It’s a PR nightmare for Chevron. So the company attacks the film, filmmaker and prosecution team. Crude is one-sided, propaganda. And Chevron alleges corruption in the prosecution team which they say is shown in the film. A US court agrees that Berlinger should hand over all 600+ hours of footage so that Chevron’s complaint can be investigated, despite his First Amendments rights as a journalist. More celebrities (as well as filmmakers, journalists and professional organisations) come to his defence. But defending such a case is expensive when you’re up against an adversary with bottomless pockets. This is another excellent example of the ‘Streisand Effect’ – can attempts to intimidate trade justice activists (even when they’re trying to be even-handed!) discredit them and their work? Or can it create free publicity that makes it yet another unmissable film that a corporation ‘didn’t want you to see’? And, finally, can this type of manufactured scandal wither way, because less and less emphasis gets placed on the lives and environments of Ecuador’s indigenous people whose lives have been ruined by the oil industry?

Page reference: Jesse Fratkin, Judy Hwang and Shay O’Brien (2011) Crude: The Real Price Of Oil. followthethings.com/crude-the-real-price-of-oil.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 47 minutes.

Posted on December 2, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Curse Of The Black Gold: 50 Years Of Oil In The Niger Delta

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Home & Auto

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

TELL THE TRUTH

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

START WITH A PARADOX

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

JOIN WITH OTHERS

TARGET THE RIGHT BRANDS

“Curse Of The Black Gold: 50 Years Of Oil In The Niger Delta“
A coffee-table book featuring the photos of Ed Kashi, edited by Michael Watts for Powerhouse.
Video promotion embedded above. Preview long & borrow here. Search online to buy here.

Photojournalist Ed Kashi visits the oilfields of the Niger Delta to document the consequences of 50 years of oil extraction on people and environment. His photographs are published in a book edited by geographer Michael Watts containing essays by prominent Nigerian journalists and human rights activists, and Watts himself. It looks and feels like a coffee table book: hardback, large glossy photos, and text. It’s a thing of beauty, but its subject matter is very far from beautiful. Why is it that The Niger Delta is such a ‘hell-hole’ of poverty, conflict and environmental destruction when it could be as wealthy as Kuwait? Kashi travels through this dangerous area with armed rebel groups and takes photos of workers wearing uniforms with familiar oil company logos. Kashi wants to open the public’s eyes about this scramble for oil in Nigeria. He wants them to feel the emotions that he felt when looking these oil workers in the eye. He creates the book, a short promo film to post in YouTube, and gives talks about it. With the murder of local activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, this place and this industry is all over the news. But seeing this up close, in page after page of large and lush colour photographs can – he believes – change people’s minds. But what happens when people do? Are the photos so shocking that they prompt people into action, or into despair? And who bears the responsibility for the unfolding chaos and exploitation in the Niger Delta – the oil companies, the local and national politicians in Nigeria, the foreign governments who support both, oil consumers? Yes. All of them. And Kashi’s photographs – along with Watts’ essays – help to fuel debates about these issues amongst readers in university classes and beyond. There’s something uniquely provocative about coffee-table book trade justice activism.

Page reference: Alice Goodbrook, Jack Middleton, Luke Pickard, Jessica Plumb, Emma Rowe & Megan Wheatley (2011) Pipe Trouble. followthethings.com/curse-of-the-black-gold.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 21 minutes.

Posted on November 29, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Door key

followthethings.com
Home & Auto

2006

UNBRANDED

DOOR KEY

MADE IN MANY COUNTRIES

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

“Door Key“
Undergraduate coursework written by Alice Williams published in the Primary Geographer.
Full text below.

The students’ first task in the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module at the University of Birmingham is to make a personal connection between their lives and the lives of others elsewhere in the world who made the things they buy. These are the people who help you to be you, followthethings.com CEO Ian tells them. So choose a commodity that matters to you, that’s an important part of your identity, that you couldn’t do without. Think about its component parts, its materials, and the properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming it’. And write a 500 word first person account that connects your lives. Alice Williams writes about a recent experience. When she lost something and only then realised how important it was to her life. The key to her flat. Which gives her a sense of safety. Or at least she thinks so. Until she looks into its ingredients. Its metals. Like lead. Which is added to make it easier to cut. And its possible sources. Mines in South Africa and the USA. A smelter in Canada. A cutting plant in Italy… And the people who work with lead in these places. And the effects it has on their health. And their safety. They’re connected. Shouldn’t everyone feel safe?

Page reference: Alice Williams (2006) Door Key. followthethings.com/door-key.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes.

Posted on November 29, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Made in Dagenham

followthethings.com
Home & Auto

FIND & GIVE INSPIRATION

HUMANISE WORKERS

FIND SOME CHARACTERS

CREATE SOME CHARACTERS

TELL A STORY

SHOW FEMINIST SOLIDARITIES

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

SHOW BAD & GOOD

FIND THE UNIONS

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

BRING POLITICIANS INTO VIEW

SHOW HOW TO WIN

END HAPPY

“Made In Dagenham“
A docu-drama directed by Nigel Cole and produced by Stephen Wooley & Elizabeth Karlsen for HanWay Films & Lipsync Productions.
Trailer embedded above. Available to watch in full on Box of Broadcasts (with institutional login) here. Search online for streaming options here.

In 1968, a group of 187 women sewing car seat covers at a Ford factory in the UK go on strike for equal pay. The work they do isn’t considered by the company to be ‘skilled’. So they get paid less than their officially ‘skilled’ male colleagues doing the same kind of work. Their strike action leads to the passing of equal pay legislation in the UK and overseas. In 2003, film producer Stephen Woolley is in his car listening to a radio show called The Reunion. It brings together people who lived through important historical events to talk about them. The episode that’s on brings together the women involved in this strike action forty years after it took place. Now in their 70s and 80s, he finds the way that they tell their story irreverent, hilarious, colourful and inspiring. He laughs his head off and is hooked. He’s never heard this story before. And they’re such characters! He wants to make a film about their struggle. But is it possible to make a mainstream movie that celebrates women’s involvement in successful strike action and legislative change? Despite a lack of industry interest in funding a movie about such serious topics, the answer is yes. The timing is right in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis and with the UK’s new Equality Act passing into law. The filmmaking team meets and interview the women, and create a central character who sums up the spirit of them all. Made in Dagenham is a hit. It brings an important turning point in the UK’s labour rights history to public attention. Audiences are moved to tears. This strike ‘was the spark that lit a flame that burns to this day’ says one commentator. Another calls it ‘a political movie that’s full on fun’. Some complain that it waters down the politics and overemphasises the fun. But it inspires some women who watch it to make their own claims for equal pay. There’s still along way to go on this issue. The strikers appear in the film’s credits. The fact that it’s based on real events is very clear. But what can a docu-drama do that a documentary cannot? For one thing, it has unhindered ‘access’ to all of the people involved in the story. In real life, some may refuse to take part.

Page reference: Sarah Brown, Izzy Brunswick, Julia Nientiedt, Alistair Wheeler, Camilla Windham & Becky Woolford (2013) Made in Dagenham. followthethings.com/made-in-dagenham.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 40 minutes.

Posted on October 14, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Dow Vs Bhopal: A Toxic Rap Battle

followthethings.com
Home & Auto

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

CHANGE CITIZEN BEHAVIOUR

CHANGE GOVERNMENT BEHAVIOUR

CHANGE CORPORATE BEHAVIOUR

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

“Dow Vs Bhopal: A Toxic Rap Battle“
A music video by Sofia Ashraf published on YouTube.
Embedded in full above.

Chennai rap musician Sofia Ashraf’s Nicki Minaj-sampling protest song ‘Kodakainal Won’t’ goes viral on YouTube in 2015, drawing attention to a Unilever factory in India dumping mercury into the environment. A year later, she releases this video to draw attention to the most notorious industrial disaster in Indian history: an explosion at the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal in 1984 which released poisonous gas that killed more than 15,000 people and sickened over half a million more. A campaign has been running ever since for the victims to be compensated and the toxic legacy of the explosion to be cleaned up, even after Union Carbide was bought by Dow Chemical. Ashraf revived a rap written and performed in 2008 to support an NGO petition to the US Government’s Department of Justice to hold Dow Chemical to account. If the petition reaches 125,000 signatures, the DoJ is obliged to respond. In the video, Ashraf performs both sides of the argument as she sees it: the Indian activist side calling Dow Chemical to account, and the US government’s disdainful approach to those demanding compensation. The video encourages people to sign the petition. The 125,000 goal is reached. But what does this unlock? What can protest music do for trade justice activism?

Page reference: Nicole Sparks, Ginny Childs, Allie Short, Kat Cook, Lauren Warner & Sophie Wolf (2016) Dow Vs Bhopal: A Toxic Rap Battle (taster). followthethings.com/dow-vs-bhopal-a-toxic-rap-battle.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes.