Be the character – Page 3 – followthethings.com

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

Confessions Of An Eco-Sinner

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Fashion | Grocery

“Confessions Of An Eco-Sinner”
A non-fiction book by journalist Fred Pearce.
Available to preview on Google Books (embedded above).

British journalist Fred Pearce travels 180,000 miles, to over 20 countries, to meet the people who produce (and sometimes recycle) the prawns in his curry, the cotton in his shirt, the computer on his desk, the gold in his wedding ring, and many other things. He wants to explore his own personal ecological footprint, and to work out whether he should be ashamed and/or proud of the impact that his shopping has on the world. This is classic ‘follow the thing’ research. A quest narrative. Starting in the Global North. With a person asking ‘who made my stuff?’ They travel the world to meet the people who they rely upon and then reflect on what this means for them (and maybe you) as a ‘consumer’. This is an approach that critics within the ‘follow the thing’ genre would like to ‘de-centre’. This work could start somewhere else! But what can readers learn from Fred’s travels nonetheless? Is everyone, unknowingly, an eco-sinner like he is? And what can be done to prevent the damage that consumption causes, out of sight and out of mind?

Page reference: Robert Black, Naomi Davies, Tom Mead, Pete Statham, Lucy Taylor and Laura Wilkinson (2011) Confessions Of An Eco-Sinner. followthethings.com/confessions-of-an-ecosinner.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes.

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

Ballet Shoes

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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 26, 2025 by Mark

The True Cost

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Fashion

“The True Cost“
A documentary film (with website) directed Andrew Morgan & executive produced by Livia Firth for Life Is My Movie Entertainment.
Available in full on YouTube (embedded above). Website here.

American filmmaker Andrew Morgan weeps in a New York Starbucks after seeing a front page newspaper story about the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh where over 1,100 garment workers were crushed to death making clothes for Western high street retailers and brands. It’s illustrated with a photos two young boys looking at photos the of missing, assumed dead, workers pinned up near the site. They are the same age as his sons and are looking for their missing mum. He is shocked to his core. How could something this atrocious be allowed to happen? He imagines making a film that will answer this question and sets up a kickstarter campaign to raise the money to finance it. He doesn’t believe that there’s an individual or organisation who, alone, could have saved those people’s lives by acting differently (like consumers, for example). So he travels to lots of places in fashion’s supply chains. He talks to workers, farmers, managers, retired executives, ethical fashion pioneers, NGO execs, journalists, doctors and academics. Viewers get to know some – like Shima Akhter the garment factory worker in Bangladesh and LaRhea Pepper the cotton farmer in the USA – better than others. He makes the argument that Rana Plaza was a systematic failure. This film’s networky trade justice activism shows how everyone in the industry could and should act differently to make things better. Some, as his film shows, are already doing so. But can it encourage more people to get involved in the systemic change that’s needed? Who needs to see it? Where? There’s a lot of detail to digest here! Maybe too much. This film generated more discussion than any example researched on our website so far.

Page reference: Olivia Dubec, Sophie Rees, Amelia Daniel, Becca Craig, Ellie Glynn, Frankie Ward & Katy Jackson (2020) The True Cost. followthethings.com/the-true-cost.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 146 minutes

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

Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board Of Directors

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Ship my order

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

LIE TO TELL THE TRUTH

“Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board of Directors“
An electronic docupop album by Icebreaker International (Alexander Perls & Simon Break).
Free Spotify stream embedded above. Used vinyl & CD versions available on Discogs here.

NATO’s art division commissions electronic musicians Icebreaker International to create on board a container ship called the Trein Maersk as it travels between the ports of Yokohama in Japan to Halifax in Canada. NATO wants this to be a musical celebration of ‘free trade’. It’s a concept album that samples audio from its travels (including squawking seagulls) as well as ideological soundbites from champions of unregulated markets. Its tracks include ‘Port of Dubai’ and ‘The Third Way’ and they were written as the ship passed through these places, and as they reflected on these ideological arguments. The purpose of this work is educational. The CD booklet contains lots of information about world trade and a map of the ship’s journey. Online reviewers praise it as a masterpiece. This is a work of genius. Many are moved by the depth of feeling that this ‘electronic docupop’ has for the sea and for free trade. It’s the album Kraftwerk would have made if they weren’t so preoccupied with autobahns. So many of these reviews are so effusive in their praise that some think that something suspicious is happening here. Is this a genuine concept album or an elaborate prank? Does NATO even have an art division? Have these musicians ever travelled on a container ship? Are they really right wing musicians rebelling against activist representations of free trade? It could be true that that this music vividly evokes its logistics. Even if it does so sarcastically. Have a listen. See what you think. What role can a right wing (maybe) concept album play in trade justice activism? What can it do?

Page reference: Rachael Midlen (2013) Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board of Directors. followthethings.com/treinmaersk.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 31 minutes.

Posted on August 19, 2024January 10, 2025 by Ian Cook

The Letter In The Saks 5th Avenue Bag

followthethings.com
Fashion | My shopping bag

“The Letter In The Saks 5th Avenue Bag“
A letter written by Tohnain Emmanuel Thiong in a Chinese prison factory, found in New York in a Saks 5th Avenue shopping bag by Stephanie Wilson and posted online.
Reproduced in full above.

Stephanie Wilson buys a pair of Hunter rain boots at a high end department store – Saks Fifth Avenue – in New York City. Rummaging through the ‘free with purchase’ bag, she is shocked to find a handwritten letter in English that begins ‘HELP! HELP! HELP!’ and a tiny passport photo. It’s from a Cameroonian man who made that bag it in a Chinese prison factory. With the help of an NGO and a journalist, she finds him. This ‘message in a bottle’ definitely wasn’t a hoax (or was it?). But how was he able to write it? How many did he write? What danger was he in by doing this? All of these questions could be answered. It helped that he’d written his Yahoo email address on the back. And that he was no longer in prison, or in China, when they emailed him. Could a short letter like this have a big impact on the sourcing of these bags? What were the chances that someone would find and act on one? Its discovery, the detective work that it sparked, and the issues that it raised, went viral. Which companies want their branded goods to be made in jail by falsely imprisoned, tortured and molested inmates? It’s not just the commodities that a store sells that shoppers should be worried about. It’s the bags, the tills, the escalators… everything that contributes to the shopping experience. Workers’ rights are everywhere. Including in office furniture allegedly made in US prisons. Fact-check!

Page reference: Will Kelleher & Ian Cook (2014) The Letter In The Saks 5th Avenue Bag. followthethings.com/the-letter-in-the-saks-5th-avenue-bag.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 37 minutes.