Destination – UK – followthethings.com

“Blood, Sweat & Takeaways“
A four-episode reality TV series produced directed & produced by James Christie-Miller for Ricochet Films for television broadcast on BBC3.
All episodes embedded above. Also available on Box of Broadcasts (with institutional login) here.

Lauren, 21, and loves luxury food. Jess, 19, is a fussy eater. Manos, 20, loves fast food. Josh, 20, loves to cook. Stacey, 20, is an ethical shopper. Olu, 25, is a fitness fanatic. But this group of multicultural Brits who don’t seem to care where their food comes from. Until they are approached by a TV company which challenges them to travel to Indonesia and Thailand and to step into the shoes of the farm, factory and trawler workers who source and process it for export. Over four episodes – on Tuna, Prawns, Rice and Chicken – they’re filmed working alongside supply chain workers, earning and spending the same 40p an hour wages, and living in the same places. They relentlessly gut, behead and loin tuna fish in a factory. They work in waist-deep mud farming prawns and up to their ankles in water in a rice paddy field. It’s hot. All they have to eat each day is a banana and a slice of bread. This is a shock to their systems. This is car crash reality TV. They crack under the pressure, retch, cry, faint, fall out, fight, refuse to work, slow down the production line, get sick, feel guilty, insult and patronise their co-workers and escape to a comfortable hotel, eat at McDonalds and get first class medical care. Olu is sent home after a fight with Manos. He’s replaced by James, a young farmer. At least he knows where food comes from. But, as they get over the shock, episode by episode, they are humbled by the experience and become more appreciative consumers. This is the second ‘Blood, sweat and…’ series broadcast by the BBC. And it’s equally successful, attracting big audiences, winning awards and being shown around the world. Its aim is to encourage young people to think about who makes their stuff, and to find their own solutions like the cast members do. Because this is reality TV, much of the discussion focuses on the cast and how ‘spoilt’ they seem to be, how terrible they are as British ‘ambassadors’ in Thailand and Indonesia, how distastasteful it is for them to ogle at squalour, and how easy it is for them – unlike the people they’re working alongside – to leave. Critics say that its reality TV format encourages an enjoyment of the casts’ meltdowns more than their thoughtful reflections. Others quibble the facts and argue that the series’ narrative arc is a work of fiction. Others say that it places too much emphasis on consumer awareness, without provinding any ideas about what viewers should do next. And there’s nothing in this series about other responsible actors in these supply chains (for a comparison, see our page on the BBC’s ‘Mangetout’ documentary here) and nothing about the need for structural change (e.g. living wage legislation). But the BBC sets up a web forum for people to discuss these issues and one cast member ends up on a late night BBC news show challenging some glib trade arguments made by a represenative of the British Retail Consortium. So, what does this TV series do for its British cast? Its Thai and Indonesian participants? The production company? The last one is easy. The success of this second ‘Blood sweat and…’ series is followed by the making of the next series. ‘Blood, sweat & luxuries’. Then, years later, TV production executives in Holland and the Czech Republic reported that it has inspired new reality TV series. The whole series was uploaded to YouTube in full in 2022, where a whole new generation of viewers – around the world – could engage with the series, its characters and its message.

Page reference: 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 <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 102 minutes.

Posted on December 20, 2024January 8, 2025 by Ian Cook

Gravesend, 2007

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Electronics

SORCED IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

MAKE IT A MYSTERY

MAKE IT INCOMPLETE

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

MAKE IT BEAUTIFUL

“Gravesend, 2007“
An art work / short film by Steve McQueen premiered at the Venice Biennale and exhibited at the Renaissance Society in Chicago, USA in 2007 and at the Uneven Geographies exhibition at the Nottingham Contemporary Gallery, UK in 2010.
Gallery photo above. Renaissance Society exhibition photos here. Acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA here. Not available to watch online.

After a decade of rare earth metal mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for use in the growing consumer electronics sector, and recognising the history of African colonial plunder artist Steve McQueen sets out to make a short film that brings this story into one piece of art work. He travels between the coltan mines of the DRC and a coltan processing facilities in the UK. The miners, sometimes children, dig coltan from muddy trenches. This is brutal and poorly paid work wrecks the environment and funds a civil war in which 4 million people have lost their lives. The specialist metals which emerge from this ravaged place are perfect ingredients for modern consumer electronics, because they can conduct electricity without getting too hot. McQueen visits a pristine, computerised factory facility in the UK where this coltan ore is processed. The film he makes out of these loaded and shockingly different elements is described by critics and viewers as abstract, poetic, animated (sometimes), deafeningly loud (sometimes), beautiful, intense, opaque, meditative, melancholy, that works though ‘phenomenological estrangement’, has no titles or narration and scenes and moods that leap between places and dissolve into one another. The coltan miners appear in it as ‘ghostly absences of light’. For McQueen, this isn’t a documentary film. It doesn’t give supply chain workers a voice. It’s a film about looking. It takes its name from a town in the British county of Kent, which sits on the banks of the River Thames where Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness book begins. You can only watch it in an art gallery when it’s being exhibited. Some commenter are impressed with its intellectual purpose and depth, while others say they need to read the museum brochure to understand what it’s about (e.g. coltan). It seems from what people say that this isn’t an activist film or art work. It’s not setting out to motivate its viewers to understand and to act. But it is, for some, intensely haunting. Maybe you have to be there, watching it in that gallery space, with other people, other art work, the signage, the space, the lighting. This is a space where its viewers to ‘make the necessary connections.’

Page reference: Tom Bollands, Alistair Brouard, Amelia Cozon, James Hornsby, Phoebe Park & Louise Richardson (2024) Gravesend, 2007. followthethings.com/gravesend.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 25 minutes.

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

iPod

followthethings.com
Electronics

“iPod“
Undergraduate coursework written by Rebecca Payne, published in the Teaching 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 – Rebecca Payne – is sitting in the university library wondering what to write. To block out the noise, and to help her concentrate, she listens to music in her iPod. And this is what she starts to think about, and to research, for her coursework. She spends a lot of time with her ‘little white friend’. She charges his battery. Takes him for a run. And he helps her to create the sonic bubble she enjoys living in which connects her to the work of her favourite musicians. Here coursework wants her to pop the bubble, though. So she looks at the ‘made in’ information on her iPod, and they consults the internet for a iPod teardown, where tech nerds take things to pieces to see what their component parts are. Then she looks up news stories about their places of manufacture. She find some connections. And thinks about the factory workers who have also helped to create this bubble she enjoys so much. She finishes with catchy turn of phrase: ‘I can only feel separated because I’m so connected’ and, mimicking Apple’s advertising tagline at the time, ‘iPod therefore I am.’

Page reference: Rebecca Payne (2006) iPod. followthethings.com/ipod.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

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

The Connectivitea Of Britain And Sri Lanka

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Grocery

“The Connectivitea Of Britain And Sri Lanka“
A dissertation by Sarah Wrathmell, submitted as part of their BA Geography degree at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Sample pages from its findings chapters are embedded in the slideshow above. Click them to read the dissertation.

Undergraduate Geography student Sarah Wrathmell has an ambitious idea for her dissertation research. She wants to travel to Sri Lanka to find the people who grow her morning cup of tea on a plantation in Kandy, Sri Lanka. She plans to ‘follow the thing’ and to undertake some multisited ethnographic fieldwork along the supply chain of ‘Tillings’ (a pseudonym) loose breakfast tea. She ends up writing about six places: the tea garden where the tea is grown, its collection spaces, its production factory (all in Sri Lanka), its blending factory, a specialist tea shop, and a tea garden where she shares a pot of tea with a group of friends (all in the UK). She talks to pickers, packers and drivers; visits factories and talks to people tasting, processing and packaging it to exacting standards; and finally drinks that tea with those drinkers. This is embodied, sensory work that she has to – somehow – get on the page. What she wants to understand is what, and who, are the ingredients in her tea? And how are the lives of the people involved in making and drinking it interrelated? As a reader, your job is to follow her on her travels as she tries to make sense of this. Its assessors say it’s a fantastic piece of work. So, it’s submitted for a national dissertation prize. It wins this unanimously. We have a grainy .pdf copy that you can download and read. It’s important to show that not only are there high profile films, publications, and other forms of trade justice research and activism to pay attention to. Students have been doing this work too, for much smaller audiences, for years. What can this work look like?

Dissertation reference: Sarah Wrathmell (2003) The Connectivitea of Britain & Sri Lanka. BA Geography Dissertation: University of Birmingham, UK (followthethings.com/the-connectivitea-of-Britain-and-sri-lanka.shtml last accessed <insert date here>)

Page reference: Sarah Wrathmell (2024) The Connectivitea of Britain & Sri Lanka. followthethings.com/the-connectivitea-of-Britain-and-sri-lanka.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 60 minutes.

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

Sweetness & Power: The Place Of Sugar In Modern History

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Grocery

GROWN IN THE CARIBBEAN

CONSUMED IN THE UK

NONFICTION BOOK

CROSS CULTURES

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

REACH NEW AUDIENCES

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

“Sweetness & Power: The Place Of Sugar In Modern History“
A popular academic book written by Sidney Mintz and originally published by Viking.
‘Look inside’ preview embedded above. Search online to purchase a copy here.

After living and working with sugar cane workers in Puerto Rico, anthropologist Sidney Mintz began to wonder about how sugar cane had become such an important crop, and how its cultures of production in the Caribbean and cultures of consumption in the UK and North America had developed together over time. As he studied these relations, he realised that the international sugar trade – as the iconic crop of plantation slavery and as an inexpensive source of energy (sweetening a cup of tea) for the industrial working class in Britain – were intimately connected. Writing a book about a thing – sugar – was innovative in the 1980s, and this book is said to have kickstarted a publishing genre of books-about-commodities. He wanted to publish one that could be enjoyed by academic and popular readers. Its arguments about sugar brought together perspectives from both academic anthropology and history. So the reviews were mixed. The story was bitty. It was either too academic or too simplistic. What’s certain, however, is that it has become a classic in the ‘follow the thing’ genre. Mintz was a, or the, ‘early adopter.’ Today, perhaps, what’s most important is the historical perspective that it provides, rooting contemporary capitalism in colonialism and empire, in harsh proto-industrial plantation labour and in a consumer appetite for sweetness. This page was originally written in 2012. There is so much more that we could now add.

Page reference: Anita Badejo, Josephine Korijn & Asya Rahlin (2012) Sweetness & Power: The Place Of Sugar In Modern History. followthethings.com/sweetness-power-the-place-of-sugar-in-modern-history.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 31 minutes.

Posted on December 17, 2024January 30, 2025 by Ian Cook

Mark Thomas Comedy Product S5 E4 ‘Pester Power’

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Sport & Fitness

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

CHANGE INDUSTRY MINDS

CHANGE CORPORATE BEHAVIOUR

IMPROVE PAY & CONDITIONS

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

SHOW BOTH SIDES

BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

INVOLVE CONSUMERS

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

RE-DESIGN THE COMMODITY

MAKE IT PROVOCATIVE

MAKE IT FUNNY

“Mark Thomas Comedy Product S5 E4 ‘Pester Power’“
An episode of a satirical TV series starring comedian-activist Mark Thomas broadcast on the UK’s Channel 4.
Full episode embedded above.

Mark Thomas is a British activist-comedian who has a long-running stand-up comedy / satire show on TV. He’s filming an episode in a North London secondary school with a geography teacher called Noel Jenkins and his students. It starts off being about government cutbacks which mean that schools are relying on free books from publishers like Jazzy Books which contain advertising. When the Jazzy Books CEO refuses to talk to them on the phone, he asks the students if they would like to talk to one of the advertisers: adidas. Mr Jenkins has been teaching them about sweatshop production Indonesia, so they are primed. Mark Thomas says he has the phone number of David Husselbee, adidas’ ‘Global Director of Social and Environmental Affairs’. He calls him, and his crew film what happens. Husselbee is out of office. So Thomas asks the students to leave him a message. What questions do they want to ask him? They’re all about adidas sweatshops. Everyone at the school goes go to lunch and, when they get back to class, Husselbee – surprisingly – returns the call. He spends an hour on the phone answering the student’s sweatshop questions. It’s all filmed. Thomas asks the students if they’re happy with Husselbee’s answers. Nobody is. Husselbee says it would be different if he was there in person. So Mark Thomas and Mr Jenkins invite him to visit. He does so a few weeks later. Thomas also invites Richard Howitt, an MEP who has been trying and failing to get adidas to turn up to an EU hearing about sweatshop labour. Also present are two women from Indonesia, one who works for a mission supporting factory workers like those who make adidas shoes, and the other her translator. Thomas’ crew films the discussion, which Thomas talks about in the stand-up comedy show that’s made about it. This classroom is the site of an extraordinary get-together of supply chain actors, and an extraordinary discussion unfolds that is rooted in the direct, heartfelt and cheeky style of questioning from the young people present. This is ‘pester power’ (the episode’s title): showing what young people can do to get adults to change their behaviour. It’s common knowledge in trade justice activism that different actors in supply chains have different experiences of, and roles in, keeping the flow of commodities going. And it’s common knowledge that different priorities, ethics and value systems are more or less at home in different roles. But, when you bring these together in a discussion like the one in this classroom, with people they don’t normally talk to each other as equals, they can clash horribly. That’s what’s so revealing about this example and why it has to feature on our site. This example of trade justice activism comes from an time when corporate executives were less guarded, when they might turn up to explain on camera the way that the economy works from their perspective (see also our page on the BBC documentary Mangetout here), and before they started using corporate PR firms to protect themselves from such scrutiny (when they didn’t come out of this very well). Putting corporate executives under the spotlight this can have an impact. Husselbee says to Howitt at the end of the discussion that adidas will turn up to the next EU hearing. Would that have happened without this ‘pester power’ show? The students are inspired by the power they find they have.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) Mark Thomas Comedy Product S5 E4 ‘Pester Power’. followthethings.com/mark-thomas-comedy-product-s5-e4-pester-power.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 40 minutes.

Posted on December 13, 2024January 8, 2025 by Ian Cook

iPhone 3G – Already With Pictures! (aka ‘iPhone Girl’)

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Electronics

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

USE YOUR PRIVILEGE

BE THE CHARACTER

HUMANISE THINGS

PUT A MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

ENCOURAGE DETECTIVE WORK

FIND A CHARACTER

ASK FOR HELP

“iPhone 3G – Already With Pictures! (aka ‘iPhone Girl’)“
Three photos of an anonymous iPhone factory worker found on a new iPhone and posted on the MacRumors forum by markm49uk.
MacRumors post screengrabbed and shown above. See the original post (and comments) here.

markm49uk has just bought a new iPhone 3G. He’s carefully unboxed and unwrapped it. He turns it on. Checks the photos. And find that it’s come pre-loaded with three images. It’s a young Chinese woman, seeming working on an iPhone production line. She’s smiling, making peace signs with her hands. She looks happy. markm49uk is curious. He posts the photos on MacRumors to see if anyone else has found fun photos like these on their new iPhones. Nobody else seems to have, but his post ignites an international ‘whodunnit?’ that starts in MacRumor comments and spreads far far beyond as forum members re-post the photos and markm49uk’s questions elsewhere. Who is this person? Where does she work? Will she get in trouble for this? Is she working in one of the Apple factories in China where workers have been committing suicide because of the working conditions? Why does she look so happy? Is she an Apple (or Foxconn – their manufacturer) plant? Is she just smiling because she’s having her photo taken? Why is someone taking her photograph with the phone that markm49uk bought? Are they testing its? Are all smartphones tested like this? Why weren’t these photos erased? What did markm49uk do with those photos? Did he keep them on his phone? Other people downloaded one to add to their phone’s home screen. To acknowledge the labour that went into their phone. They said it was partly her phone too because she helped to make it. So she should be visible. We, and so many others who came across these photos, love this example. It’s inspired other Apple activism because of its surprising warmth and humanity. Part of the reason it went viral is that it was a mystery for people to solve. There were so many unanswered questions! Another reason is because so many commenters thought this was an accident. All of the other worker ‘message in a bottle‘ examples on followthethings.com imagine a consumer receiving their message and hopefully doing what they ask them to do. But this example has no explicit message. Nobody seems to know what this young woman – and the person who took her photos – is trying to say. All of the tactics buttons we’ve chosen above are based on an assumption that the work we feature is a) activism and b) deliberate. But what if it’s just a few fun photos that one workmate took of another and forgot to delete? Why would such a simple accident cause such a stir? Why would it cause so many people to talk about trade injustice in Apple’s supply chains? We think it’s simple. Apple’s press at the time was all about worker suicides in its Chinese factories. But this worker seemed to be happy. How could that be possible, even in the few moments it takes to snap a few phone pictures? For many, these photos show something different. The discussions are fascinating.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) iPhone 3G – Already With Pictures! (aka ‘iPhone Girl’). followthethings.com/iphone-3g-already-with-pictures-aka-iphone-girl.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 71 minutes.

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

Our New Commemorative £2 coin

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Money & Finance

“Our Commemorative £2 Coin“
Undergraduate coursework written by Mike Swan, Will Davies, Emma Christie-Miller, Becky Woolford, Meagan Wheatley, Maddie Redfern, Robbie Black, Lucy Webber, Jade Stevens, Katy Charlton & Tom Bollands (a.k.a Royally Minted).
Available in full below. Originally posted online here.

In 2010, students start the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ by researching different examples of trade justice activism to add to the followthethings.com website (not all of them made it). Next, students who have researched different examples came together to create their own original examples of trade justice activism. They pick up some important ideas from their own research and what has already been published here on followthethings.com. They know the importance of looking beyond the usual suspects of follow the things activist – phones, fashion and food – and think about something they don’t think about, something that’s made by doesn’t have a ‘made in’ label, something that’s jangling in all of their pockets: coins. They know that they’re made of metal, but have no idea which ones or where they might be mined by whom. They’ve read about commodities embodying the labour of their creators, and being haunted by them. They’re carrying around, they’re spending, the labour of those mine workers. It’s easy to find which metals are in coins. The organisations that mint them tend to say so. And it’s not difficult to find newspaper, NGO and occupational toxicology research that profiles the labour that goes into mining these metals around the world, the multiple forms of pollution caused by this mining and the damage this does to people’s health, social structures and the environment. The group’s task is to think about how best to present their findings, to make those lives part of this thing, to insert those lives into the lives of coins and their transaction. 2010 sees the UK’s Royal Mint releasing a two commemorative £2 coins: to mark 150 years of modern nursing and the 100 years since the death of Florence Nightingale. The group – now calling themselves ‘Royally Minted’ – decide to design a third that will commemorate the labour that goes into mining those coins’ metals. They look at the Royal Mint’s commemorative coin webpages and mimic their format and content. It’s all very celebratory, very collectable. These students are particularly inspired by forms of activism – like the Suffragette Penny [see our page on this here] – which puts political issues into circulation on and as commodities. Money – with its unique status as a commodity and a means of exchange – is a perfect vehicle for political messages. If only the Royal Mint would commission this.

Page reference: Royally Minted (2010) Our New Commemorative £2 Coin. followthethings.com/our-new-commemorative-£2-coin.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes.

Posted on December 10, 2024January 7, 2025 by Mark

£20 Banknote

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Money & Finance

2009

BANK OF ENGLAND

£20 NOTE

SOURCED IN UZBEKISTAN?

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

“£20 Banknote“
Undergraduate coursework written by Oli Busk.

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 – Oli Busk – has just got a £100 parking fine. He goes to the ATM to withdraw some cash, and then starts to think about what money is made from, its materials, its manufacture. Sure, there’s ways that it can be invested ethically and sustainability, but what about how its paper form is produced. The Royal Mint – which manufactures physical cash for the Bank of England – doesn’t say much about what it procures to make that cash. That would probably make it easier to make counterfeit money. So he indulges in some educated guesswork. There’s cotton in those notes, sooo … whose lives – apart from Queen Elizabeth – are in them? To his surprise, the hidden labour he finds is undertaken by students like him. And children.

Page reference: Oli Busk (2009) £20 Banknote. followthethings.com/£20-banknote.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes.

Posted on December 8, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

The Pill (a.k.a. A Female Issue)

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Health & Beauty

“The Pill (a.k.a. A Female Issue)“
Undergraduate coursework created by Kate Ross.

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. Because you’re a cyborg, your body cannot function without the people, animals, technologies, networks that makes its inputs like food and medicine. 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’. See what you can find online and write a 500 word first person account that connects your lives. One student – Kate Ross – chooses a prescription drug that she takes every day called Co-cyprindiol. It’s a contraceptive pill that’s also prescribed for skin and other conditions. When searches online to find out more about it, she discovers women in China, Brazil and Taiwan who are forced to take contraceptive pills in order to work in the factories and on the farms which make the stuff she buys. Her argument is that her connection with them is not only through the goods they might produce than she might buy. Their connection is through their consumption – as women – of the same medicine, voluntarily or not. They have something in common. Their bodies. Their fertility. Their medication. Once she learns about their relationships with the drug she takes, she thinks about how she’s feeling every time she pops one out of the foil pack… and then I see that face. To make her coursework more visceral, she takes an empty Co-cyprindiol foil, sticks it to a piece of paper, and handwrites these thoughts around it, day by day. These are the same foils that the supply chain workers she’s read about will pop their pills out of every day. She writes her thoughts and footnotes these with academic and detective work readings that have helped her to think this way.

Page reference: Kate Ross (2004) The Pill (A.K.A. A Female Issue). followthethings.com/the-pill-leaflet-thyroxine-a-k-a-a-female-issue.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes.