Mirror – followthethings.com

“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.

Original

Discussion / Responses

This works on every level. I read it backwards and it was fantastic. This really worked as a way to get your reader wrapped up in your story, despite this being one of the most difficult case studies anyone has chosen. … Vivid and interesting. The detective work was great but the connections a little shaky. … A treat to read. Vivid, quirky, imaginative and interesting. (Source: Ian Cook’s marker comments).

Like a piece of conceptual art (Source: an audience member responding to Cook et al 2009)

Page edited and posted by Ian Cook with the permission of the author. Originally written as coursework for the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module at the University of Exeter (last updated July 2011).

Sources

Angus, T., Cook, I., Evans, J. et al (2001) A manifesto for cyborg pedagogy? International research in geographical and environmental education 10(2), p.195-201 (https://eric.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10036/21512/irgee0100195.pdf?sequence=1 last accessed 12 March 2011)

Anon (2009) Tin production by country (metric tons). indexmuni.com (www.indexmundi.com/minerals/?product=tin&graph=production last accessed 12 March 2011)

Anon (2011) Mirror. wikipedia.org modified 8 July (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror last accessed 13 July 2011)

Bennett, J. (2001) Commodity fetishism and commodity enchantment. in her Enchantment of modern life: attachments, crossings and ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p.111-130.

+9 sources

Castree, N. (2001) Commodity fetishism, geographical imaginations and imaginative geographies. Environment and planning A 33, p.1519-1525

Cook et al, I. (2009) The aesthetics of exploitation. Paper presented in the ‘Material culture and geography’ session at the Association of American Geographers annual conference, Las Vegas (abstract at http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/AbstractDetail.cfm?AbstractID=26220 last accessed 12 March 2011)

Cook, I., & Crang, P. (1996) ‘The world on a plate’: culinary culture, displacement and geographical knowledges. Journal of material culture 1(2), p.131-54

Cook, K. (ed) (2007) [Bolvia] If you fall, no one’s gonna carry you out: children who work in mines 1. San Jose, Puerto Rico: World Vision International (www.worldvision.org/resources.nsf/main/work_bolivia_200706.pdf/ last accessed 12 March 2011).

Haraway, D. (1991) A cyborg manifesto: science, technology and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. in her Simians, cyborgs and women: the reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge, p.149-181 (www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html last accessed 12 March 2011).

Kunzru, H. (1997) You are cyborg: for Donna Haraway, we are already assimilated. Wired February (www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html last accessed 12 March 2011)

Miller, D. (2003) Could the internet de-festishise the commodity? Envrironment & planning D: society and space 21(3), p. 359-372 (www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/people/academic_staff/d_miller/mil-5 last accessed 12 March 2011)

Taussig, M. (1980) The devil & commodity fetishism in South America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Whatmore, S. (1997) Dissecting the autonomous self: hybrid cartographies for a relational ethics. Environment & planning D: society & space 15, p.37-53

Image credits

Header: Young woman using lipstick (https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/young-woman-using-lipstick_6274687.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=23&uuid=873f2830-ccef-48d6-80a7-f32cf3dd0430) by freepik (freepik)

Speaking icon: Speaking (https://thenounproject.com/icon/speaking-5549886/) by M Faisal from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0) Modified August 2024