{"id":26361,"date":"2025-07-16T14:52:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T14:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/followthethings.com\/?p=26361"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:11:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:11:04","slug":"the-followthethings-com-handbook-for-trade-justice-activism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/followthethings.com\/?p=26361","title":{"rendered":"The followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is the beginning of the next phase of the followthethings.com project. In 2020, we started to analyse the data we’ve compiled on over 100 examples of trade justice activism on followthethings.com. We’ve been trying to better understand the relationships between its intentions, tactics, responses and impacts. It design has been inspired by the short connected ‘pattern language’ approach taken in the Beautiful… <\/em>activism books (Boyd 2012, Mitchell et al 2017, Williams et al 2025). While these books set out examples of activism, activists’ intentions, and the tactics and theories they can use, they don’t talk about audiences’ responses to, and the impacts of, this work. We’re trying to work out how trade justice activism works, and what it can do. We want to pass on what we have learned to those who are studying and making new trade justice activism. We have concentrated on films and videos to beging with and can only provide a taste of the Handbook<\/em> at the moment. But we’d love to hear your thoughts. See our contact page<\/a>. Please check back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONTENTS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

INTRODUCTION<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EXAMPLES<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bananas!*
Beautiful clothes, ugly reality
Big boys gone bananas!*
Blood, sweat & takeaways
Dream crazy
Employee visualisation appendage<\/a>
Ghosts
Girl model
Handprint
Ilha das Flores<\/a>
Jamelia – whose hair is it anyway?
Life of a bullet<\/a>
Maquilapolis
Mangetout
Primark \u2013 on the rack
Tackle the shackles<\/a>
The ginger trail
The messenger band
The true cost
UDITA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

INTENTIONS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

What do trade justice activists want their work to do?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Change consumer behaviour
Change corporate behaviour
Change government behaviour
Cross cultures
Educate workers
End violence & exploitation
Improve pay & conditions
Pop the bubble<\/a>
Reach new audiences
Show capitalist evils<\/a>
Show what\u2019s possible
Teach economic geography
Tell the truth<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

TACTICS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

What actions and strategies do they use to bring their intentions to life?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Add mood music
Blame, shame & guilt
Bring managers into view<\/a>
Choose an audience
Create a character
Embody exploitation
Encourage a boycott
Encourage curiosity
Encourage detective work
Encourage empathy
Encourage feminist solidarities
Find & give inspiration
Find a character
Find the love<\/a>
Find the unions
Flip the script
Follow the people
Follow the thing
Give workers the mic!
Have a theory of change
Hold \u2019em accountable
Humanise workers
Include emotion
Include haunting & horror<\/a>
Include suffering kids
Include the digital
Involve consumers
Join with others
Join the dots
Juxtapose extremes
Lie to tell the truth
Make a website
Make it familiar
Make it funny
Make it incomplete
Make Music
Make the familiar strange
Place things carefully
Put your bodies in the way
Show both sides
Show the violence
Silence your critics
Spend some time
Stage a Q&A
Start somewhere different
Suggest concrete action
Target the right brand
Tell a story
Workers take the mic
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

RESPONSES<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

How do audiences respond to this work, the stories it tells, the suggestions it makes?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Attack your critics
Capitalism is sh*t
Creeperific
Guilty as charged
I get what it\u2019s like
I gotta do something
I just cried
I know how they feel
I laughed my ass off
I want to find out more
I won\u2019t buy it
I\u2019m humming that music
I\u2019m so angry
It\u2019s so badly made
Liar! Fraud!
LOL capitalism
My hero!
Oh shut up
Silence your critics
That’s racist
There is no alternative
These consumers are insane
These people are inspiring
They aren’t experts!
This gives me hope
This is disgusting<\/a>
This is so sad
Who to believe?
Who\u2019s responsible?
Wow \ud83d\udca5 WTF?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

IMPACTS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

What changes does trade justice activism encourage in the world?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Activism is inspired
Activism is publicised
Activists are recruited
Audiences are empowered
Can\u2019t tell
Corporations are punished
Corporations change
Debts are paid off
Governments intervene
I shop differently now
Now I know
Now we’re talking
Workers suffer
Workers\u2019 pay & conditions improve<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ADVICE TO FILMMAKERS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

How students have used this handbook to criticaly anaylse trade justice activism<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

‘Get people to reflect, not recoil’<\/a>
‘Choose the emotion that won\u2019t let go \u2013 then hit \u2018record’<\/a>
‘You can’t Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V resistance’<\/a>
‘Yes, it\u2019s small. But that\u2019s the point’<\/a>
‘Just showing up \u2013 again and again \u2013 can be the start of something’<\/a>
‘It\u2019s funny how you can be so angry at someone who is just doing their job’<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This is the beginning of the next phase of the followthethings.com project. In 2020, we started to analyse the data we’ve compiled on over 100 examples of trade justice activism on followthethings.com. We’ve been trying to better understand the relationships between its intentions, tactics, responses and impacts. It design has been inspired by the short […]<\/p>\n

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