Tag: Start somewhere different

CHANGE GOVERNMENT BEHAVIOUR

CHANGE CITIZEN BEHAVIOUR

FLIP THE SCRIPT!

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

CHOOSE AN AUDIENCE

PUT A MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

ASK FOR HELP

FIND & GIVE INSPIRATION

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

MAKE A DOCUMENTARY

MAKE IT TOGETHER

TELL A STORY

WHITE PHOSPHORUS ARTILLERY SHELL

FIND LOST RELATIONS

BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

END UNHAPPY

MAKE IT AVAILABLE

STAGE A Q&A

“Letter from Masanjia”
Documentary film starring Sun Yi, directed by Leon Lee, co-written by Sun Yi, Leon Lee & Caylan Ford, in English & Mandarin with English subtitles.
Vimeo trailer and pay per view stream embedded above [may not work in your region]. Check here and here for other streaming options, and here to purchase and here to borrow a DVD or Blu-ray copy [may not work in your region].

One of the earliest examples of trade justice activism that we researched and added to our store was a letter that went viral in 2012 [it’s here]. Oregon, USA shopper Julie Keith had found a one page handwritten note in a box of Kmart Halloween decorations. It was a ‘message in a bottle’ from a prison labour camp in China. It asked her to forward it to the World Human Rights organisation, because these decorations had been made by political prisoners who were being tortured and forced to make these things. The letter was anonymous. She posted a photo of it on facebook asking for help. Soon, the story of the letter was featured in her local newspaper, and was picked up by international news outlets like CNN and the New York Times. They were eager to expose the scandal and to find the person who had written it. The New York Times found him: they called him ‘Mr Zhang’ who was no longer in jail. But the story then reached China via an online post – published and quickly deleted – that caused outrage on Chinese social media. Writing that letter had had the most amazing impact. Doing what its author had asked had had the most amazing impact. China’s ‘Re-education Through Labour’ programme was abolished, and 160,000 political prisoners were released from its prison labour camps. But the New York Times journalist wasn’t the only person who found the author. A Chinese filmmaker living in Canada called Leon Lee had also tracked him down. The author had watched his banned-in-China documentary about the human organ trade in China via a VPN connection. For that film, Leon Lee had interviewed former inmates of the notorious Masanjia labour camp where the author had been incarcerated. He’d used his contacts from making that film to find him. Lee talked to him via an encrypted Skype call. They decided to make a film about the letter, the labour camps, and political repression in China. But Lee was barred from China. If he’d travelled there, he’d have ended up in jail, or worse. So he trained the letter’s author – now happy to use his name Sun Yi – in covert filmmaking techniques, and how to smuggle encrypted hard drives to Canada to get the footage to Lee to make the film. The film that Lee made – Letter from Masanjia – had two parts: one looked back on the story of Sun Yi’s incarceration, decoration-making, letter writing and smuggling (illustrated by cartoons Sun Yi drew himself), and the other documented his ongoing persecution by the state after release for his past and continued activism (including making this film). When letter from Masanjia came out, it was a sensation. The plot was so unbelievable, so i-have-no-idea-what-will-happen-next, so emotionally complex, that it had to be true. Festival audiences around the world were blown away. It’s a classic ‘follow the thing’ narrative – people in other parts of the world make the things that Western consumers buy in horrible conditions. Here, however, the worker is in the narrative’s driving seat, first writing and smuggling the letter, and then filming (and drawing) the story that’s edited for release. The risks he has taken, and the calm, determined demeanour he shows in the process, amaze the film’s audiences. As does the meeting that takes place between him and Julie Keith in Jakarta, which ends the film. As does Sun Yi’s death in suspicious circumstances at the end of the filming. As well as being a hugely emotional producer-meets-consumer story, and a hugely brave and tragic success story of trade justice activism, Letter to Masanjia message is both anti-capitalist and anti-communist. There’s something in it for everyone. Any exposé of something ‘Made in China’ can do that. It generated tons of discussion and debate, which we’ve tried to capture below. This Halloween tale is incredibly scary.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2025) Letter from Masanjia. followthethings.com/letter-from-masanjia.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 123 minutes.

Posted on July 31, 2025September 9, 2025 by Ian Cook

Following the white phosphorus trail

followthethings.com
Security

2009

UNBRANDED

SHOW MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX EVILS

CROSS CULTURES

CHANGE GOVERNMENT BEHAVIOUR

GROWN IN PALESTINE / ISRAEL

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

“Following the white phosphorus trail”
A series of four TV news stories broadcast on Al Jazeera English.
Embedded in the YouTube playlist above.

‘Follow the things’ trade justice activism tends to connect unknowing consumers to the exploited supply chain workers who make the things they buy. But not when it comes to the arms trade. Here, the direction of travel is reversed: it’s this industry’s ultimate ‘consumers’ – the people who are killed and maimed by these commodities – that activists are worried about, especially when their use can be considered a war crime. Since Hamas’ October 7th 2023 attack on Israel and the Israeli government’s military response (described by many, and denied by Israel, as a genocide), arms trade activists around the world have set out to make public the geographies of the arms trade supplying the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and to disrupt this via non-violent direct action. They have also sought to hold arms manufacturers, shipping companies, Israeli and other goverments, and the IDF accountable for their actions under international law. But who are the people who make these weapons, where in the world? What do they know about the devastating impacts of their work? How do they feel about this? How do they rationalise it? Who’s responsible for this death and destruction? Soon after Hamas’ October 7th attack, news reports emerged that accused the IDF of using white phosphorus shells to bomb civilians in Gaza and Lebanon. These shells are designed to light up the sky, and/or to provide a smokecreen, for ground troops to more safely move into an area. That’s their permitted use. But if they’re used to bomb people, that’s a war crime. White phosphorus burns when it comes into contact with oxygen, and it keeps burning for weeks. It’s fat soluble so, if it lands on people’s skin, it burns and burns. Journalists and arms trade activists could identify where these white phosphorus shells were made from production codes they found on fragments of the shells found in burning ruins. An arsenal in the small town of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, USA, was the source. And not for the first time. In 2008-9, white phosphorus shells from the Pine Bluff Arsenal had been dropped on Palestinian civilians during the IDF’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’. The Quatari news station Al Jazeera sent a reporter there and broadcast at least four news stories that followed the trail of white phosphorus munitions there from Gaza. Reporter Mike Kirsch talked to locals, showed them images of Palestinian people burned by munitions made in their town, asked them what they felt about this, asked their mayor what he felt about this. There was a detailed Amnesty International report that he could show them. Were people in this town at least partially responsible for this death and destruction? Was the Arsenal responsible? Was the US government responsible? The IDF? Hamas? Here’s what we have been able to find.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2025) Following the white phosphorus trail. followthethings.com/following-the-white-phosphorus-trail.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 53 minutes.

Posted on July 10, 2025July 14, 2025 by Ian Cook

Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork

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Grocery

2009

JAFFA

ORANGES

SHOW WHAT’S POSSIBLE

MAKE THE FAMILIAR STRANGE

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

BRING ACADEMICS INTO VIEW

TELL A STORY

MAKE IT INDEPENDENT

STAGE A Q&A

“Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork“
A documentary film dirercted by Eyal Sivan for Trabelsi Productions.
Trailer embedded above, search online for streaming options here.

Imagine visiting your local supermarket and popping a bag of Jaffa branded oranges in your basket. Then imagine browsing your favourite news site on your phone in the checkout queue and reading the latest story about deaths in Gaza, war in the Middle East. Maybe you’ve read a lot about this conflict, or have some first hand experience. But news stories don’t tend to explain its background, how and why it began. That bag of oranges – and this documentary film – can help to do this. Jaffa is an ancient Palestinian city. It’s also where Jaffa-branded oranges have been grown by Arab and Jewish people since the 1800s. Once picked, they would wrap each individual fruit in tissue paper, pack them into wooden boxes, load them onto boats and ship them wordwide. A year after the birth of ‘practical photography’ in 1839, Palestinian photographer Khalil Khaed visited Jaffa to document everyday life and work, including in its orange groves. Photographers, filmmakers, artists and advertisiers have documented the connection between Jaffa and oranges ever since. But, as the Israeli state began to take shape in the 20th Century, this film argues that there was a concerted attempt to remove Palestine from Jaffa oranges and to rebrand them as emblems of Israeli civilisation. It’s settler Colonialism 101. To piece this history together, Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan spent five years sifting through numerous archives for Jaffa-orange photos, films, advertising and resistance. He showed what he found to Israeli and Palestinian people- academics, poets, retired orange workers, advertising executives, others – and filmed their reactions. What he created from this footage is – many have said – a profoundly insightful and moving documentary. It has generated considerable critical and public acclaim from audiences around the world. First screened in 2009, it is still a go-to documentary to spark debate about the Palestine-Israel conflict today. And Sivan continues to attend screenings to answer questions about the film and the futures that might be possible in the region. Sivan’s politics, and films, are anti-Zionist. He has struggled to raise funding and to gain screening opportunities in Israel. He and his films have generated criticisms of anti-semitism. But the main argument in ‘Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork’ is that, if Arab and Jewish people were able to work together harmoniously in the past – like they did in Jaffa’s orange groves – they can do so in the future. You have to see this to believe this. Why not watch the film? Read the comments below. See what you think. We’ve tried to captire all of the discusion we’ve found online.

Page reference: Lucian Harford (2025) Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork. followthethings.com/jaffa-the-oranges-clockwork.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 67 minutes.

Posted on January 9, 2025January 12, 2025 by Ian Cook

How Sushi Went Global

followthethings.com
Grocery

2009

UNBRANDED

BLUEFIN TUNA

SOURCED IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

SOURCED IN THE USA

SOURCED IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

“How Sushi Went Global“
A popular academic research article by Theordore Bestor published in the Foreign Policy journal.
Image of paper journal printout embedded above. Click image to access the .pdf version here. Click here to read the online version (which includes only the article’s text).

If you want the best bluefin tuna for your sushi, it has to be graded in the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. But the fish are farmed and caught in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and elsewhere. And the restaurants where you can eat it are all over the world. So whose lives are connected through this intricate global trade? How did it develop? And what can sushi tell us about globalisation? That’s what an American anthropologist Ted Bestor wants to find out. He travels to different places in this tuna supply chain – a fish dock in Maine, USA; a Mediterranean fishing town in Spain; and Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. He sees tuna caught and off the US and Spanish coasts being graded in Tokyo to sell in the fanciest sushi restaurants around the world. They travel, iced, in containers called ‘tuna coffins’ in the bellies of Boeing 747 jets. Years ago, except in Japan, these fish were only suitable for sports fishers or cat food manufacturers. But what’s developed as sushi has gone global is a sophisticated international trade feeding the popularisation of Japanese cuisine. These fish cross cultures and following their movements helps Bestor to vividly explain the concept of globalisation. Commenters say his article provides a view of globalisation that’s embedded in and between social relations in specific places. It’s a well old story, a gem of a ‘follow the thing’ study that’s widely used in classrooms around the world.

Page reference: Olivia Hoffman and Erin Teich (2012) How Sushi Went Global. followthethings.com/how-sushi-went-global.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 23 minutes.

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

Maquilapolis (City Of Factories)

followthethings.com
Home & Auto | Health & Beauty

MULTIPLE OTHER BRANDS

MANY OTHER COMMODITIES

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

EDUCATE WORKERS

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

BRING POLITICIANS INTO VIEW

SHOW THE VIOLENCE

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

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 11, 2024January 6, 2025 by Ian Cook

Chrysal; Or, The Adventures Of A Guinea

followthethings.com
Money & Finance

CREATE A CHARACTER

FOLLOW THE THING

LIE TO TELL THE TRUTH

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

INVOLVE SOME CELEBRITIES

MAKE IT A MYSTERY

“Chrysal; Or, The Adventures Of A Guinea“
A 4 volume fictional book series by Charles Johnstone, the first two of which were originally published by T. Becket.
An 1821 version of Volume 1 is embedded in full above. Click here to read Volume 2, here to read Volume 3 and here to read Volume 4.

Here at followthethings.com we’re keen to appreciate the historical depth of our genre. Up until quite recently, we had traced everything back to Karl Marx’s chapter on the commodity (and commodity fetishism) in Capital Volume 1 which was first published in the 1860s. David Harvey’s teachings about Capital, and his appeals for geographers and otherS to get behind the veil of the commodity and tell the story of human reproduction were what encouraged us to do this work back in the day. But when you ask what inspired Marx, what literature was well known in his day, what had been written before, this impulse to know whose lives are connected by commodities goes back to the 1700s, to the birth of global capitalism (via empire), and to a genre of cheap and unglamourous ‘novels of circulation’. These make sense of this confusing, emerging world from the perspective of the commodities which were becoming part of its expanding consumer culture. There are dozens and dozens of these novels which we could choose to feature on our site, but the first one we want to add is this one – not least because it seems to have been one of the most popular and influential, but also because it’s about money – a commodity (and means of exchange) that academics have found more difficult to follow than most. This story is narrated by a gold guinea coin, starting from its mining in Peru and talking about its life connecting and witnessing the lives of a variety of people who earn, spend and steal it in different places. Because people aren’t careful what they do and say when a coin is covertly spying on them, the tales this coin tells – to an alchemist it meets at the end of volume one, who writes them down because coins can’t write – are scandalous. Some of the people whose lives are included were famous at the time, others were not. This book is both a scandalous exposé of the lives of famous people of the time and an ethical and moral tale about the emerging economic relations of capitalism and empire. It was inventive, eccentric and a huge popular hit. What would a commodity tell you about its life if it could talk? Here’s your answer! Commodities who can speak for themselves are very much part of trade justice activism today. There are lots of our examples on our site, but here’s one of the earliest. What can today’s activists learn from this? Here’s a taster. We’ll return to this later and add some more depth and detail.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) Chrysal; Or, The Adventures Of A Guinea (taster page). followthethings.com/chrysal-or-the-adventures-of-a-guinea.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes.

Posted on December 4, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Those With Justice: A Disney Factory In China (+ Looking For Mickey Mouse’s Conscience – A Survey Of The Working Conditions Of Disney’s Supplier Factories in China)

followthethings.com
Gifts & Seasonal

CHANGE CORPORATE BEHAVIOUR

IMPROVE PAY & CONDITIONS

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

FLIP THE SCRIPT!

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

HUMANISE THINGS

SHOW THE VIOLENCE

PUT YOUR BODIES IN THE WAY

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

PROMPT GOOD CITIZENSHOP

BARGAIN & NEGOTIATE

“Those With Justice: A Disney Factory In China (+ Looking For Mickey Mouse’s Conscience – A Survey Of The Working Conditions Of Disney’s Supplier Factories in China)“
A short film directed by Karin Mak and translated by Jessie Wang for, and an NGO Report published by, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) & Sweatshop Watch.
Watch the film in full above. Read the report – here.

Inspired by student anti-sweatshop activism in the USA, students in Hong Kong come together to protest the opening of Hong Kong’s Disneyland. They visit the factories where the Disney merch that is going to be sold there is made. They talk to the factory workers, and are horrified by what they learn. There are dangerous and exploitative labour practices behind the happy smiling image of Mickey Mouse and Friends. One group of students – who call themselves Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (or SACOM) – write a report about the working conditions in four of Disney’s hundreds of Chinese supplier factories. It’s called Looking for Mickey Mouse’s Conscience – A Survey of the Working Conditions of Disney’s Supplier Factories in China. They do this with the help of a California-based NGO called Sweatshop Watch, who send a delegation to China which includes University of California Santa Cruz film studies student Karin Mak. Mak films the factory workers talking about these working conditions, and produces an 11 minute documentary called Those With Justice: A Disney Factory In China. This focuses on one of the four factories – Hung Hing Printing & Packaging – which makes children’s books for Disney. Here, she finds, the workers are constantly reminded about the delicate fingers of Western children. They mustn’t be harmed by paper cuts. That’s why they have to use dangerous hot glue presses to stick the paper covers to hardback copies of a Mickey Mouse’s Haunted Halloween book, for example. The film and the report show images of their burned, crushed and mangled fingers. These injuries are caused by equipment and the speed at which they have to work to meet their targets. Mak’s film is used by SACOM and Sweatshop Watch (and other labour rights NGOs) to launch the report. It helps this Disney sweatshop story to get traction in the international new media. Now Disney is under pressure to respond. What follows is a fascinating to-and-fro between a huge multinational corporation and a small, determined, skilful and well-connected group of Hong Kong students. This is a fascinating and important example of successful trade justice activism. Piecing the story together below, we have found a variety of factors that have contributed to this success – some planned, some not – and a fascinating discussion about what counts as ‘success’.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2011) Those With Justice: A Disney Factory In China (+ Looking For Mickey Mouse’s Conscience – A Survey Of The Working Conditions Of Disney’s Supplier Factories in China). followthethings.com/those-with-justice.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 56 minutes.

Posted on December 4, 2024October 31, 2025 by Ian Cook

‘I Found This In A Box Of Halloween Decorations’

followthethings.com
Gifts & Seasonal

2013

KMART

HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS

CHANGE GOVERNMENT BEHAVIOUR

CHANGE CITIZEN BEHAVIOUR

FLIP THE SCRIPT!

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

CHOOSE AN AUDIENCE

HUMANISE THINGS

PUT A MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

ASK FOR HELP

MAKE IT SNAPPY

MAKE IT AVAILABLE

“I Found This In A Box Of Halloween Decorations”
A letter written by ‘Mr Zhang’ (Sun Yi) in a Chinese prison factory and found in a box of Kmart Halloween decorations bought in Oregon, USA by Julie Keith.
Original letter recieved by Julie Keith and posted online shown above.

In 2013, shopper Julie Keith is unpacking a box of styrofoam Halloween decorations she bought from her local K-Mart. In between the ghoulish plastic gravestones, she finds a folded-up letter. It’s written in English by someone who says that they’re a prison factory worker in China who has helped to make this product. They give the address of the prison (called Masanjia) and say that its inmates work long hours and have been tortured, beaten and insulted. It asks its recipient to forward the letter to the ‘World Human Rights Organisation’. Julie thinks it’s genuine and posts o photo of the letter on her facebook with the caption ‘I found this in a box of Halloween decorations’. It gets a flurry of responses. Is it genuine? What should she do with it? There isn’t a ‘World Human Right Organisation’. The discussions spread. The post is shared many times. Soon it’s being reported on the local TV news. Next it’s a global news story. Who is this person? How did they write this note? How did they smuggle it into a box of Halloween decorations? How many letters did they write? What did they hope would happen? What danger were they in for doing this? Can journalists find the author and verify the story? And, most importantly, why are ‘made in China’ goods coming from factory labour? Isn’t that illegal?

NB a documentary film about this letter was released in 2018. We will add a page on its making, reception and impacts soon.

Page reference: Harry Marriot, Alex Partington, William Finley, Milly Bowen, Sarah Murray & Jenny Sharp (2014) ‘I Found This In A Box Of Halloween Decorations’. followthethings.com/i-found-this-in-a-box-of-halloween-decorations.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 34 minutes.

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

Crude: The Real Price Of Oil

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Home & Auto

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW