Find lost relations – Page 2 – followthethings.com

“Broccoli & Desire: Global Connections & Maya Struggles In Postwar Guatemala“
An academic book by Edward F. Fischer & Peter Benson published by Stanford University Press.
Google Books preview embedded above.

There are shoppers in Nashville USA who are conscious about their health and shop for healthy vegetables like broccoli in their local supermarkets. There are farmers in Guatemala who are trying to hold onto their land and to make a living by growing vegetables like brocolli for export markets like the USA. Each has their own rich and fascinating story to tell about their lives, their work, their dreams and desires for a better future. In this book, their lives are seen as interdependent as the authors travel along Brocolli’s supply chain, connecting these worlds and lives through detailed ethnographic fieldwork and description. They find that shoppers’ and farmers’ lives, and the impacts that they have on one another, are bound together in complex geographical and historical webs of connection. Like the best ‘follow the thing’ work, this study of a commodity that many wouldn’t think twice about on the supermarket shelf. But, once you start to examine it, ask questions about it, and start following it, what you find is often staggering in its contrasts, connections, depth and feeling. For the authors, the concept of ‘desire’ is something that this vegetable’s farmers and shoppers have in common. Could shoppers’ desire for cheap food be re-aligned into a desire for more equitable relations with farmers (even if this might cost a bit more)? Can there be foods that are good for the health and wellbeing of everyone in their supply chains? This is an admirable intention, but we haven’t been able to tell if and how this book encouraged others to think this was and to act on this way of thinking. What impact can an academic book have?

Page reference: Keith DellaGrotta and Meredith Weaver (2011) Broccoli & Desire: Global Connections & Maya Struggles In Postwar Guatemala. followthethings.com/broccoli-desire-gobal-connections-maya-struggles-in-postwar-guatemala.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes.

Posted on September 20, 2024January 26, 2025 by Ian Cook

China, Britain And The Nunzilla Conundrum

followthethings.com
Gifts & Seasonal

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

INVOLVE CONSUMERS

FIND LOST RELATIONS

MAKE IT FUNNY

“China, Britain And The Nunzilla Conundrum“
A radio documentary presented by Anna Chen (a.k.a. Madam Miaow), produced by Sally Heaven for BBC Radio 4.
Audio clip embedded above. Listen to the full radio documentary on the BBC website here (when available, with account, screengrab above) and on Box of Broadcasts here (with University subscription).

Chinese-English comedian and writer Anna Chen loves kitsch, ‘tat’, and (to some) offensive ‘stocking filler’ gifts like the clockwork fire breathing nun ‘Nunzilla’ and ‘Dashboard Jesus’ (not to mention elastic band holder ‘Mummy Mike’ and singing fish ‘Billy Bass’). Unsurprisingly, they’re ‘Made in China’ but, she wants to find out, what do they tell us and the people who design and make them about Western culture, religion and values? What gets lost and found in translation? And what do the factory workers who make them think they are for? How do they imagine the people who buy them? And what can tracing the relations between the designers, makers and consumers of cheap plastic kitsch tat tell us about China-UK relations? This is a serious piece of cross-cultural commodity following. It’s enjoyable and worrying. But there aren’t any exploited workers. What’s it hoping to achieve?

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) China, Britain And The Nunzilla Conundrum. followthethings.com/china-britain-and-the-nunzilla-conundrum.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes.

Posted on September 20, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Diamonds Are From Sierra Leone

followthethings.com
Gifts & Seasonal

2005

UNBRANDED

DIAMONDS

MINED IN SIERRA LEONE

BOUGHT IN THE USA

MUSIC VIDEO

CHANGE CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

FIND LOST RELATIONS

ADD TO THE MIX

ENCOURAGE A BUYCOTT

“Diamonds Are From Sierra Leone“
A music video starring Kanye West & Jay-Z, directed by Hype Williams, music by Kanye West, Jon Brion & Devo Springstein, for Roc-A-Fella Records.
Embedded above.

Kanye West is writing and recording a new song commemorating the rebirth of his label Roc-A-Fella Records, including conflicts within the organisation and its hand-signal which is the shape of a diamond. Q-Tip, a former member of A Tribe Called Quest, then alerts him to the ‘blood diamond’ scandal in Sierra Leone. So West changes the title of the track to ‘Diamonds are from Sierra Leone’. And makes a powerful black and white music video about the supply chain linking the country’s child diamond miners to wealthy white diamond consumers shopping in high end jewellery stores in the USA. A small, black, child’s hand appears from beneath the counter to hand these consumers the precious blood diamond they crave. The video ends with a converted luxury car ramming the store and a screen with a plea: ‘please buy conflict free diamonds’. The video wants to raise awareness of the issue. But audiences point out how a diamond-encrusted mask that West wears on stage, and the bling culture he brags about, makes this plea a bit hypocritical. His core fans are also not impressed by the song’s sample of Shirley Bassey’s ‘Diamonds Are Forever ‘ (plus some harpsichord sampling) on the album where this track appears. So he returns to recording more traditional Crack Music that his fans want to hear. Nevertheless, the message of ‘Diamonds Are From Sierra Leone’ gets through. Audience members are questioning the origins of their diamonds. So is this a successful example of trade justice activism despite – kind of – not being trade justice activism?

Page reference: Hector Neil-Mee, Hannah Willard, James Kemp, Harvey Dunshire, Maddy Morgan & Luke Jarvis (2024) Diamonds Are From Sierra Leone (taster). followthethings.com/diamonds-are-from-sierra-leone.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes.

Posted on September 20, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

The First Ever Pacemaker To Speak For Itself

followthethings.com
Health & Beauty

2014

UNBRANDED

HEART PACEMAKER

MINED IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

REDESIGN THE COMMODITY

ENCOURAGE THANKFULNESS

“The First Ever Pacemaker To Speak For Itself“
Undergraduate coursework made and recorded by Jennifer Hart
Images of the pacemaker and packaging submitted is in the slideshow above, the song is embedded below.

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 what properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming’ it. Student Jennifer Hart feels guilty about the conflict minerals in her mobile phone. Then she finds that the heart pacemaker her mum is having fitted also contains those minerals. It’s a lifesaving operation. How can she reconcile her mum’s suffering and that of these minerals’ miners? How best can she express her feelings about this technological object? By making a pacemaker that knows what she knows, feels what she feels, and can sing about it. A pacemaker that can express a huge thank you.

Page reference: Jennifer Hart, J. (2014) The First Ever Pacemaker To Speak For Itself. followthethings.com/pacemaker.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated listening & reading time: 10 minutes.

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

Find Your Doppelganger

followthethings.com
Apps

2015

UNBRANDED

PHOTO APP

DOPPELGANGERS WORLDWIDE

USED WORLDWIDE

PHONE APP CONCEPT

POP THE BUBBLE

ENCOURAGE DETECTIVE WORK

BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

ENCOURAGE EMPATHY

“Find Your Doppelganger“
A concept for a mobile phone app submitted by Rachel Grant as part of a BA Geography dissertation at the University of Exeter, UK.
Full concept text below.

Student Rachel Grant likes to try out the latest apps on her smartphone. She’s tried ones that tell you which celebrity you look like. That’s OK. But there’s a photographer who finds unrelated people who look exactly alike. The technical terms is doppelganger. He arranges for them to meet, photographs them together and finds they feel connected, like lost relations. So what if there was a phone app – like the ones that help you find your celebrity lookalike – that could scan your face and introduce you to your supply chain doppelganger? A garment worker? A tungsten miner? A tea picker? A delivry driver? A plastic recycler? Someone who helped to make your stuff? Might you feel more empathetic towards supply chain workers if they looked like you? Would it be easier to imagine walking in their shoes? What if the ‘Find Your Doppelganger’ app gave you the chance to chat? What if you met up? What impact could meeting a lost ‘relation’ like this have on you?

Page reference: Rachel Grant (2024) Find Your Doppelganger. followthethings.com/doppelganger.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes.

Posted on September 13, 2024January 26, 2025 by Ian Cook

Ilha Das Flores

followthethings.com
Grocery | Money & Finance | Recycle my waste

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

MAKE IT FUNNY

TRANSLATE & SUBTITLE

“Ilha Das Flores (Island Of Flowers)“
A short film written, directed and produced by Jorge Furtado for Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Embedded in full above. Search online to watch the film here. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

It sounds simple: filmmaker Jorge Furtado follows the life of a tomato from Mr Suzuki’s tomato field to a garbage dump ‘on the Island of Flowers’ in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Here, the rotten tomatoes binned in shoppers’ kitchens are selected to feed the local pigs. The leftovers are scavenged by local people who have queued for the chance. But, this no ordinary film. Its footage doesn’t always seem ‘real’. Its voiceover is eccentric but is delivered in monotone. It’s like an economic geography lecture – or a public information film – that’s been made for an audience visiting Planet Earth for the first time. It explains what a human being is, and what the function of money in capitalism is, for instance. It’s full of human beings whose tomato-connected lives audiences can learn a little bit about. It’s a collage made from quick cuts between filmed scenes, found media and ideas. There seem to be so many tangents. But, together, they gradually build a powerful argument that, ultimately, trashes the way that capitalism values people, animals and the environment. Humans who watched it called it a beautiful, hilarious and deeply troubling masterpiece. You’ll have to watch it to believe it. Maybe two or three times. It’s only 13 minutes long. It’s the only example of trade justice activism that we have found that follows a thing from the beginning to the end of its life. And it decentres the stereotypical shopper in fascinating and eccentric ways. But what is Jorge Furtado trying to achieve? What are his cultural reference points? Why is this highly political film presented as a kind of weird joke?

Page reference: Maura Pavalow (2025) Ilha das Flores. followthethings.com/ilhadasflores.html (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 68 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 28, 2025 by Ian Cook

Where Am I Wearing?

followthethings.com
Fashion

“Where Am I Wearing? A Global Tour To The Countries, Factories, and People that Make Our Clothes“
A non-fiction book written by Kelsey Timmerman and published by Wiley.
Google Books preview embedded above.

Self confessed ‘All-American Guy’ Kelsey Timmerman is curious about the ‘Made in…’ tags in his favourite clothes. He wants to go to those countries and meet the people who made them for him. So he sets off around the world to meets workers in each place. But he doesn’t work alongside them or quiz them about their pay and conditions. He wants to get to know them as people. So, in Bangladesh, they go bowling together. In Cambodia, they ride a roller-coaster. He wants to appreciate how globalisation isn’t abstract, but it happens to regular (if impoverished) people. He’s not trying to ‘nail’ a corporation. He doesn’t have strong moral views. He sees himself as an innocent abroad, a ‘touron’ (tourist + moron). Readers say this social justice meets crazy road trip book is friendly, funny, easy to read and not at all preachy. Some say everyone should go on a trip like this to appreciate who made their stuff too. What Timmerman has written either naively skims over, or brilliantly introduces, complex trade (in)justice debates. Maybe this is the best way introduce new readers to these debates? Does an example of trade justice activism have to include everything? Where do you start?

Page reference: Emma Baker, Eleanor Bird, Gemma Crease, Imogen Crookes and Coralie Sucker (2012) Where Am I Wearing? followthethings.com/where-am-i-wearing.shtml (last accessed: <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 54 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Made In Cambodia

followthethings.com
Fashion

BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

ENCOURAGE EMPATHY

“Made in Cambodia“
A dissertation by Helen Clare, submitted as part of their BA Geography degree at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Click the preview pages above to read the dissertation.

Undergraduate student Helen Clare looks through her clothes and finds an H&M t-shirt ‘Made in Cambodia’. She’s traveling to Cambodia to do some charity work in her summer vacation. She wants to find and meet one of the garment factory workers who helped to make that T-shirt for her. But, despite her best efforts, she cannot gain access to the factories where she’s convinced it may have been made. So, she does the next best thing. She takes a course that will give her the qualification to work there. What does she learn along the way? Who does she get to meet? And what can she learn from them about the lives her t-shirt connects?

Dissertation reference: Helen Clare (2006) Made in Cambodia. BA Geography Dissertation: University of Birmingham, UK (followthethings.com/madeincambodia.shtml last accessed <insert date here>)

Page reference: Helen Clare (2024) Made in Cambodia. followthethings.com/made-in-cambodia.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 92 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Ballet Shoes

followthethings.com
Fashion

“Ballet Shoes“
Undergraduate coursework written by Maya Motamedi, published in the Primary Geography journal.
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. One student – Maya Motamedi – is a ballet dancer. She loves her Grishko pointe shoes. They’re part of her dancing body. After some online detective work, she’s finds who made them for her, far away in Russia. The shoes’ component parts come from plenty of other places. This kind of thinking, this kind of detective work, means you are never alone, never do anything by yourself! The lives of thousands of people are wedged into those shoes, says Maya, dancing with her.

Page reference: Maya Motamedi (2006) Ballet shoes. followthethings.com/ballet-shoes.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

Posted on August 21, 2024January 28, 2025 by Mark

The Eternal Embrace

followthethings.com
Fashion

“The Eternal Embrace“
A photograph by Taslima Akhter.
Photo blurred due to sensitive content. Available online.

Bangladeshi photographer and activist Taslima Akhter visits the ruins of the collapsed Rana Plaza factory. On April 24th 2013, over 1,100 garment workers were crushed to death there as they made clothes for high street brands including GAP, Primark and H&M. In the rubble, she spots two dead factory workers – a woman and a man – who appear to have died in each other’s arms. Her head is tipped back and a bloody tear has fallen from his eye. She takes a photo and posts it online. There are thousands of press photos of the disaster, but this one is said by many to be the most heart-wrenching and haunting. Commentators are repelled and drawn to its horror and beauty in equal measure. What were the final moments of these garment workers’ lives like? What was their relationship? What caused them to be killed like this? What impacts can a photo like this have on people who buy clothes made in factories like this? It’s profound.

Page reference: Nancy Scotford (2013) The Eternal Embrace. followthethings.com/the-eternal-embrace.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 47 minutes.