Clothing Poverty
\nIntroduction (Linda)
\n\u2022 Book explores how second-hand clothing supply chains cut across continents
\n\u2022 Used-clothing networks: are intimate bonds of connectivity, they physically link consumers who wear new clothes in global N to poorest in global S who depend on buying & re-wearing the same garments
\n reverse flow of commodities as it goes from rich to poor, while new clothes are manufactured in low-income countries & emerging economies (China)
\n\u2022 Fast fashion: instantaneous and cheap manufacturing, ever-changing supply of garment styles & relatively effortless consumption of clothing; how trends move rapidly from catwalk to the store
\n Western consumers have choice over what they wear b\/c poor ppl in developing world grow cotton, dye materials & stitch fabric, and are paid low wages which keeps clothes cheap
\n Low wages can\u2019t allow cotton farmers & factory workers to consume garments they help make & so global division in consumption emerged<\/p>\n
Chapter 1 \u2013 A Biography of Jeans (Linda)
\n\u2022 Systems of provision: how an everyday clothing item has a rich history & passes along a geographically diverse commodity chain, then to consumers
\n Considers how the role of the consumer emerged & is an inclusive way of examining the \u2018chain of activity that attaches consumption to production that makes it possible\u2019 (Ben Fine)
\n 6 stages: origin, design, cotton growing, denim milling, manufacturing, advertising & retail<\/p>\n
Jeans: a social history – Began with weaving of denim fabric & use of indigo dye
\n\u2022 We have become conditioned to wear jeans as part of entrenched clothing systems of provision
\n\u2022 The spheres of production & consumption influence one another as the market for, and the use value of, jeans \u2018are shaped according to the modern relations of production and in turn intervene to modify those relations\u2019
\n Use value: material worth of a thing in relation to the wants and needs of humans
\n– Hard-wearing denim trousers were practical, reliable & useful
\n– This use value was reinforced by global production infrastructure, which developed to mass-manufacture a robust & affordable garment that could be tailored to convey different cultural messages
\n– Jeans are a product of industrial development and in turn have shaped how industry developed, leading to emergence of jeans systems of provision
\n\u2022 When used jeans are transported & taken up by 2nd owner, they will form part of a new semiotic register, made up of a group of different signs and signifiers
\n (Daniel Millar) 1st core semiotic marker was association of jeans with US, now jeans are globally entrenched<\/p>\n
Designing denim
\n\u2022 Designers are located in global north: Levi Strauss (San Francisco), Armani, Gucci & Prada (Millan), London, Paris, NY b\/c it is skilled technical, metropolitan work that\u2019s well paid, graduate-level jobs as opposed to low-skilled, poorly paid, dangerous production in global S
\n\u2022 Designs allows 1 to be noticed & anonymity; effect a balance btw providing uniform & individual looks, which reflects societies own tensions btw social liberty & conformity to prescribed patterns of behaviour & lives on to influence how jeans are valued in 2ndary marketplaces
\n\u2022 Buyers covet new trends\/styles & yearning to consume becomes a form of control \u2013 it is central to social relations under capitalism
\n Inherently expansionist nature of the market means ppl have to be compelled to buy more goods that at authentic, fashionable & luxurious, which are aspirational images that capitalism depends
\n\u2022 Designers play key role in systems of provision by creating visual formulas that can be cultivated to emerge as part of sophisticated advertising & marketing strategies which cast a spell on the consumer<\/p>\n
Growing cotton
\n\u2022 Cotton uses far greater degree of chemical input than most food crops b\/c less concern over consumer\u2019s health (as not ingesting it), but have disastrous impacts on agricultural environments & worker\u2019s well-being
\n Virtual water: invisible agriculture & industrial consumption of water that goes into production of goods
\n– Cotton far exceeds water requirements of food crops & grown in water-scarce environments
\n– Demand for cotton products driven by overconsumption in N, threatens precious water resources
\n\u2022 Agricultural workers in cotton sector have been treated in a disgraceful way for centuries; cotton always grown at great human cost
\n US: cotton growing inextricably linked to slavery; Africa: connected to colonial labour abuses
\n Global S: abuse of child labour, labour exploitation
\n\u2022 Research by Oxfam (advocator for change): how demand for cotton keeps peasants, smallholders & agricultural workers in poverty across global South, especially in West African countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad & Mali
\n Relationships of dependency with international cotton markets & trade regulations are structured against poor producers & have negative effects on farmers\u2019 livelihoods
\n\u2022 Now, cotton production is mechanized & environmental impacts are regulation, but this only commercially viable as the sector is heavily subsidized in global N<\/p>\n
Ginning, spinning & weaving \u2013 How cotton is made
\n\u2022 Denim plants have heavy ecological footprint: process of making denim involves strong toxic chemicals, are water intensive \u2013 contributes to high volumes of virtual water
\n Effects goes beyond workers & can harm local communities
\n In global S: Local environmental controls often poorly enforced, but in manufacturing, spinning & weaving factories are help to exacting international standards to produce denims with minimal faults
\n\u2022 Blending of diff patterns of production & regimes of accumulation makes it difficult to audit the multiple relationships btw farmers, ginneries, spinners & fabric weavers that constitute the production of denim
\n Throughout global jeans\u2019 systems of provision, denim is produced in 1 factory by 1 contractor & sent onwards to garment factories where it is cut & sewn
\n Across the linked chain of transactions there\u2019s a co-dependence btw the designers, retailer, garment sewers & manufacturers BUT designer\/retailer at the beginning of chain gets to monopolize the most valuable activities & extract the greatest overall surplus\/profit from labour<\/p>\n
Manufacturing jeans: woven denim to final designs through subdivision of labour
\n\u2022 Production & jeans manufacturing no longer major industry in N, moved to Asia or the S
\n Levi Struass process of deverticalization: headquartered in US, licensing manufacturing to foreign firms in Mexico
\n– Buyer-driven, decentralized approach allows Levi\u2019s to move production to different factories around the world & take advantage of variation in labour prices and other associated manufacturing costs, rather than being tied to comparative high wages of working classes in US
\n– Highly profitable design & marketing processes still protected & retained by Levi\u2019s
\n\u2022 Fast fashion: encapsulates the rapid changes in trends & styles found in global N and the pace of retail sales, ALSO the speed at which designs can be transmitted around the world and orders turned into garments
\n Digital pattern designs, subcontracting & flexible ordering are advanced production management approaches that the fast fashion industry utilizes to enhance profitability<\/p>\n
Advertising & retail: contribute to establishing value in expensive jeans
\n\u2022 Designer brands invest in establishing advertising & marketing strategies
\n Capital is expended on renting the best retail space, fitting out shops in chic & minimalistic styles, buying glossy advertising space & employing top models in advertising. These costs are added into the retail price & brand owners extract a surplus from all these different types of labour activity as well as thru manufacturing process to amass a profit<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s jeans systems of provision: not made in 1 place, but are constructed as a commodity with a particular set of social values through a whole web of relationships
\n\u2022 Fruits of production are unevenly distributed: diverse ppl involved in growing of cotton\/stitching of fabric\/marketing of jeans, receive different wages; meanwhile managers, owners & investors who control means of production extract surplus from both manufacturing & retail
\n\u2022 Across many jeans systems of provision the influence and power of transnational firms from the global N who promote markets for denim goods is near hegemonic
\n Mega-consumption of fast fashion reflects & reinforces socio-economic inequality whilst simultaneously degrading the environment
\n Buying jeans in N is a type of consumption that intertwines with social aspiration through distinction-making
\n Question for \u2018cheap\u2019 but serviceable clothes by consumers has led to migration of industries from (more expensive) global N to (less expensive) global S, and to the inexorable depression of inflation-adjusted wage rates for many workers, whilst ratcheting up the pressures on farmland & water-scarce environments<\/p>\n
*** Theorizing production & consumption
\n1. Spatial division of labour in clothing sector
\n Tasks are undertaken in places where they are enabled by diff factors of production
\n Design takes place in studios in cosmopolitan cities & cotton is grown where the climate and landscape allow
\n Uneven development is the result of social cleavages that have divided society & is a historical and material process
\n2. Jeans & their constituent parts are not just \u2018things\u2019 but are also a set of social relationships: link btw farmer & cotton trader, connection btw factory owner & sewing machine operator, or cultural symbol purchased by a teenager
\n These social relationships, which are positions of power & dependency in economic transactions, are in no way natural
\n– Jeans have basic use value: worn to provide warmth & protection ALSO various types of jeans are considered more\/less stylish, depending on cultural context, which affects their value
\n– Exchange of money which accompanies the movement of jeans btw diff parities in a supply chain is not directly associated with a labour activity that would make jeans more useful
\n– Social relations in market exchange not connected with the material transformation of goods or an increase in use value
\n– Value is socially determined and affected by factors such as advertising, fashions & trends, and not deprived from the basic usefulness of a thing
\n– Ppl involved in jeans system of provision (designers, stylists, models & sales Helpants) all play social role in creating symbolic value & the work they do is a product of culture
\n– Reason why well-paid jobs are carried out in global N & not S is the outcome of centuries of uneven development
\nChapter 2 \u2013 Clothes and capital (Linda)
\nBra wars
\n\u2022 Globalization: making, trading & selling commodities is part of a dynamic global market system that shapes everyone\u2019s lives
\n Liberal\/laissez-fair approaches to trade involved removing barriers that constrain free flow of goods and investment: duties (payments levied on goods), quotas (fixed numbers of imports), protectionism (shielding domestic industry from foreign competition
\n Liberal reforms by 18th century Britain, Europe & N.America pioneers of commerce removed trade barriers, freeing the market and enabling capital & products to circulate around the world = these policies led to success of global N, free trade is the mechanism by which economic growth & prosperity are derived
\n\u2022 Bra wars: dispute that erupted after quotas under Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA), which restricted import s of Chinese textiles & clothing to Europe; removed January 2005
\n Europe not prepared for increased competition so Chinese-made garments were blocked at European port by new barriers to trade, but many shipments already paid for by retailers who were enraged & faced the prospect of empty shelves
\n Not how free trade was meant to work: free trade supposed to enable civilization to flourish & prosper via their comparative advantage; European intransigence meant that China was being prevented from utilizing its huge modern factories & vast pool of cheap labour to drive forward development
\n\u2022 Removing barriers to trade enable the further spatial advance of capitalism, which much be understood as the greatest force for transforming the world; capital & commodities (clothing) are the lifeblood which flows through the body politic
\n BUT rather than moving towards an even & stable status, inequality & catastrophe are the unavoidable prognosis<\/p>\n
Crisis of capitalism: 2 features
\n1. Businesses are inherently expansionist, looking for low-cost manufacturers & new marketplaces to sell investors want to circumvent constraints on trade & compete in new regions state competes in controlling access to labour & market government overridden by the political rule of capital despite attempts to fence in production through protectionist measures result: capitalism breaks free & stalks the earth in search of new territories
\n Daily life depends upon production of commodities through a system that has profit-seeking as its principal & socially accepted goal
\n Need new investment opportunities to maintain profit growth, so when too much capital is accumulated it must be reinvested in a new area & seeks out a spatial fix: driven by logic of maximizing profitability, investment spread to occupy & seek a \u2018fix\u2019 in new spaces
\n– It is this expansionist urge which pushed bra production out of Europe & put Chinese factories in pre-eminent position in global garment trade
\n2. Crisis- prone nature:
\n Global scale = severe financial crisis that occur when there\u2019s dAssessment\/drastic loss of capital
\n Regional scale = as protectionism, labour problems, technological failings, natural limits and a lack of effective demand, which can slow down or disrupt capital flows
\n Short term solution: investors use the \u2018spatial fix\u2019 & flows of capital can be switched btw places
\n– relocating factories temporarily overcomes falling rate of profit; moving manufacturing to new lower wage locations mitigates change of a crisis of production in sectors such as clothing \u2013 hence garment manufacturing moved from Europe to Asia
\n Real human impacts: employment in EU fashion fell, poor labour conditions in China (large-scale exploitation)<\/p>\n
The origins of clothes and uneven development: society transition btw different modes of production \u2013 hunter-gather communities feudal kingdoms capitalist nations
\n\u2022 Trade is essentially production of surplus from nature: so for exchange of use values to occur & enables production for exchange to develop
\n E.g. grain could only be exchanged for wool once there was a surplus of grain
\n\u2022 CRITIQUE: Diffusionist beliefs stem from colonial view of the world, it is misused to justify the subjugation & oppression, b\/c it bestowed \u2018civilization\u2019 on areas of the world considered \u2018savage\u2019 \u2013 there is no innate \u2018modern\u2019 core & peripheral \u2018traditional\u2019 sectors to the world
\n\u2022 European nations drove forward globalization & dominate world trade b\/c injection of gold & silver from the New World after 1492 provided resources in the form of exchange value (valuable currency) that propelled European merchant capital towards political power & created transatlantic trade
\n Capitalism wrestled political control from Europe\u2019s feudal monarchs & later destroyed political power & social groups elsewhere in the colonized world<\/p>\n
Clothing in ancient society [Just a recount of history, not relevant to answering the essay question at all]<\/p>\n
Protected trade in the feudal era: colonialism
\n\u2022 Colonial project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)s are to spur expansion of manufacturing: bring in new raw materials & markets under European control
\n Columbus\u2019s voyage to America motivated by desire to find access to valuable goods: silk, spices, gold
\n Maritime exploration led to new forms of interactions btw Europe & rest of world
\n\u2022 Sustained contact in the long term meant new relationships in 1 of 3 modes:
\n1. As privileged foreigner traders in new lands (Jesuits in China)
\n2. As conquers & dominators of existing societies (French in West Africa, British in India)
\n3. As invasive land clearers who decimated & supplanted aboriginal communities (British, French & Spanish in Americas)<\/p>\n
Capitalism and Industrial Revolution: qualitative & fundamental transformation in society; large-scale movement from handicraft tools to mechanized devices transformed not only cloth production but social relations across industrialized societies
\n\u2022 Factory employment necessitated widespread changes to work patterns, which redrew social hierarchies; society polarized btw 2 classes:
\n1. Wage-earning, hard-working proletariat
\n2. Capitalist class of bourgeois industrialists: sucked surplus value from proletariat in the form of profit = exploitation of labour
\n\u2022 Exploitation increases as long as the socially accepted imperative of capital is to expand & generate ever greater profit; competing & expanding firms seek to drive profits forward
\n 2 means to maximize exploitation:
\n1. Brute force: using existing work processes & technology, more surplus value can be produced by increasing the length of the working day or by cutting salaries
\n2. Technological change \u2013 the cost of labour-power can be reduced
\n\u2022 Factory-based system of provision: facilitated exploitation & generated goods in vast quantities at diminishing costs = formed own markets for cloths products
\n\u2022 Britain was ready & primed for exponential growth in capitalist mode of production as it was an expansionist nation where money talked and governed: political rue of capital propelled the Industrial Revolution
\n (Eric Hobsbawn) 2 fundamentals preconditions required for Industrial Rev:
\n1. Industry which already offered exceptional rewards for the manufacturer who could expand output quickly, if need by reasonably cheap & simple inoovations
\n2. A world market largely monopolized by a single nation
\n Textiles sector developed with British colonial expansion overseas highly lucrative & overseas markets expanded
\n\u2022 Colonialism helped form the demand which pump-primed the emergence of industrial capitalism<\/p>\n
Capital and colonial expansion
\n\u2022 Ideas spread & factories were built in developed in societies that shared some of the preconditions: Europe and America imitates Britain
\n Effect of the emergence & expansion of capitalism and the factory were inherently spatial; while N experiences economic development, rest of the world paid the price
\n Colonized territories drawn into service of industrial economies
\n Africa, Asian, S.America were underdeveloped as local artisan production decline in the face of competition & ppl were forced to supply raw materials for the industrial powers, which established the patterns of uneven development found across the world today
\n\u2022 As the great nation-state powers of the colonial era expanded overseas, new territories were drawn into the capitalist mode of production & market integration gradually drew nearly all society worldwide into one economic system: Industrial Rev brought the world\u2019s 1st global clothing systems of provision into operation
\n\u2022 Capitalist expansion had brought crisis to India, transforming the economic geography & impoverishing the populace
\n India exported raw cotton to Britain where it was manufactured into clothing & exported back to India \u2013 process was effectively paid for by the export of other raw materials & created a relationship of structural dependency
\n Ghandi recognized the tyranny at the heart of British Imperial policy & began speaking out against minority rule & traded English suits for simple white cotton attire with khadi (traditional homespun loincloth & shawl)<\/p>\n
Capitalism adapts in the twentieth century
\n\u2022 Fordism: new approach to organizing industry for which Henry Ford\u2019s car factories provided the model
\n Scientific management of workers (Frederick W. Taylor): a division of labour btw workers performing unskilled repetitive tasks & those skilled and managerial roles
\n Ford recognized need to stimulate markets for their products, try to overcome the internal contradictions of capitalism, THEREFORE improve life of workers = so can afford to consume the goods they were making
\n Modernized organization of society to follow centralized patterns of social & political control & accepted scientifically rational norms
\n\u2022 Post-war era: problems of capitalist expansion solved through development of mass consumption in global N, modern consumer class emerged as surplus extraction relaxed
\n Rising living standards in Europe & N.America shifted manufacturing to Asia, Middle East, South America \u2013 mass migration of capital to global South began to take advantage of these countries as sources of cheap labour
\n\u2022 Decolonization in Africa & Asia stimulated industrial expansion: migration of factories from old industrial N to S
\n As poor countries gained political independence they adopted, import substitution approaches to industrialization (ISI), protecting their infant domestic industries from competition by foreign clothing<\/p>\n
The Multi-Fiber Arrangement and the growth of fast fashion
\nChapter 1 \u2013 biography of jeans (Olachi)
\nPg. 27 – “the term fast fashion does not just encapsulate the rapid changes in trend and styles found the global north and the pace of retail sales, but also the speed at which designs can be transmitted around the world and orders turned into garments. Digital pattern designs, subcontracting and flexible ordering are advanced production management approaches that the fast fashion industry utilizes to enhance profitability. Efficient use of labour is fundamentally important and workers are not always employed in sweatshop conditions\u2026
\n\u2022 The author Andrew Brooks introduces the term fast-fashion in greater detail which smoothly transitions to the analysis of garment industries tactics
\n\u2022 Fast-fashion defined as is a contemporary term used by fashion retailers to express that designs move from catwalk quickly in order to capture current fashion trends.
\n\u2022 Fast fashion is connected to the term Quick Response (QR) which was developed to improve manufacturing processes in the textile industry with the aim of removing time from the production system
\n\u2022 Fast fashion has also come under criticism for contributing to poor working conditions in developing countries*
\n\u2022 Significantly important in highlighting the key focus on what pushes these industries forward in terms of profit and going about investing in their marketed products at the expense of those people who work the labour of the marketer’s demands.
\nAlso on page 27 – “most garment workers are female, although there is often a gender division in tasks. Work such as loading and unloading materials and truck driving is more likely to be performed by men, whereas the static production tasks are primarily undertaken by young women in their late teens, 20s and 30s. Work in garment factories is a classic example of global patriarchy. Women pay the price for decisions made by men, as factory ownership in clothing manufacturing as well as senior management positions in internal clothing firms are overwhelmingly male”.
\n\u2022 Relatively important in terms of addressing problems of exploitation in the global south, this quote touches base on the issue of gender inequality, which is a prevailing factor in the condition of society – especially in the global south.
\n\u2022 Particular strong quote for option one out of the two essay topic (sample nursing essay examples by the best nursing assignment writing service)s, especially when it comes to analysing the factors in which contribute substantially to a “highly unequal world in which the citizens of the global south cannot escape poverty”.
\n\u2022 There is a noticeable pattern in the author’s approach in this chapter – he outlines the facts, the effect, but not much about a solution and how these issues could be reversed or better handled, especially in the matters of how each gender is affected. The approach is rather brief and informative, but not solution oriented.
\nPage 33 – “the mega consumption of fast fashion reflects and reinforces socio-economic inequality whilst simultaneously degrading the environment. Buying new jeans in the global north is a type of consumption that intertwines with social aspiration through distinction-making. The quest for cheap but serviceable clothes by consumers has led to migration of industries from the more expensive global north to the less expensive global south, and to the inexorable depression of inflation-adjusted wage rates for many workers, which ratcheting up the pressures on farmland and water-scarce environments”.
\n\u2022 it is the idea that to produce and keep up with the flow of demand, that risks to the health of the people, the environment, the wages in which people work for in return for their hard labour is incredibly unrealistic for a promising basic survival in a poor society, especially one in the global south where consistent development in hard enough as is.
\n\u2022 Great quote for focusing on both essay topic (sample nursing essay examples by the best nursing assignment writing service)s in terms the issue of poverty in the global south. Also this focuses on exploitation that continues to bring the nations of the global south down, rather than creating a sense of stability through decent wages – where both markets and the people working under them in these factories can benefit from all the labour imposed. Workers are paid for their time, markets keep their employees in the long run. Hard to come by, but much more fair.
\nChapter summary directly from page 37: this chapter\/biography sketches out the form of new jeans systems of provision. However there are also other forms of provision that determine the flow of second-hand jeans across the world\u2026
\n– Also, the book intends to focus on \u201cthe people and not the clothes\u201d \u2026 looking at the unequal geographical relationships in garment production and consumption.
\n– The objective of the book is to explore the full effects of the fast-fashion industry on billions of people by thinking about the manufacturing and retail of a new clothing commodity.<\/p>\n
Chapter 2 – clothes and capital (Olachi)
\nSide note – liberal or laissez-fair approaches to trade involved removing barriers that constrain the free flow of goods and investment. Barriers to trade include duties (payments goods and investment). Barriers to trade include duties (payments levied gods, quotes and protectionism).
\nPage 54: protectionism was important in developing clothing and textile sectors. The transition from artisanal making to industrial cloth manufacturing centred on Europe, and in many ways this progression is archetypal of the rise to the pinnacle of global power from the sixteenth century onwards. Especially significant in spurring the expansion of manufacturing were the colonial project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)s, which brought new raw materials and markets under European control.
\n\u2022 Briefly addresses the history of industrial revolution, major in connecting to textile development and industry.
\n\u2022 Historic example of feudal era that was connected to industries only being concerned with satisfying personal desires and objectives, and political appetites of feudal rulers
\n\u2022 Idea that the needs of the people were often neglected in terms of making decisions for production and it is relatively clear where the primary roles of power and motives remained within these societies and how is has continued over the course of time.
\n\u2022 Also, protectionism is defined as any program, policy, or system of laws that seeks to provide protection for property owners, wildlife, the environment, etc. \u2013 something to consider…
\nPage 62: in different regions the adoption or rejection of European styles of dress demonstrated acquiescence to or confrontation with different forms of authority, as people aspired to equality with or exerted their autonomy from the western world.
\n\u2022 Important to take into consider about factors that impose restraints on what is allowed and what is prohibited in society.
\n\u2022 Connection to ideologies, moral codes associated with religion as an example, personal culture, etc. – which impact the motion of society in ways that either maximizes barriers or affects the conditions of each given society, especially in the global south
\nPage 65: a link was established between production and consumption, and labour exploitation was relaxed as workers were paid salaries sufficient to enable them to consume the goods they were making. Life improved for labourers. The working day was shortened to eight hours, to create efficient workforces with stable family lives. Mass-manufactured, uniform, affordable garments, like Levi Strauss\u2019s five pocket blue jeans, provided a new type of consumable clothing for the working classes. Capitalism could profit by creating standardized patterns of dress; new modern clothing systems of provision emerged
\n\u2022 For the poor, there was a pattern of uniformity in the way they dressed. Not only because it was what was looked at in society as the most ideal or simple way of dressing, but because they owned a limited amount of garments
\n\u2022 Even so, it was also about patterns of production and consumption that helped regulate and dictate dress and were forged through a particular system of provision that was connected to the modern ways of organizing society.
\n\u2022 Also in connection to this quote, on page 66 it reads: clothing was one of the first manufacturing industries to spread as increasing wage levels in Europe and America and improvements in communication motivated capital to move clothing production to economies where costs were lower, enabling greater exploitation and accumulation of profits.<\/p>\n
Page 68: bilateral arrangements between pairs of countries were negotiated to control the imports of specific types of clothing and textiles. Rather than liberalizing market access, this system constrained trade and was repeatedly renegotiated \u2013 in years 1977, 1986, and 1991. The constraints on clothing imports benefited the rich countries as they were slowly able to adjust, rather than experiencing a shock to their economies.
\n\u2022 The global south had limited access to European and north American markets; it increased at around 6 percent a year, as developed markets were partially protected, undeveloped markets on the other hand were not
\n\u2022 Also economics in the world was undergoing a major reconstruction through the second half of the 20th century.
\no Even so, there were also social and cultural challenges to the modern ways of organizing societies in terms of art, literature and the full spectrum of cultural life leading to revolutions and protests \u2013 \u201cradical\u201d process of stepping out of the box of tradition, into a modern society.
\nChapter summary as outlined directly on page 70: \u201cthe chapter demonstrates how clothes-making moved from pre-modern artisanal production to the emergence of the fast-fashion system of provision. Across the long are of human history the global circulation of cloth and clothing has been a key force in human development and economic globalization. As apparel is traded around the world, it has contributed to the enrichment of the global north and the poverty of the south. Most importantly, uneven development is a testament to human\u2019 ability both to transcend and to despoil nature\u201d
\nChapter Three \u2013 The Shadow World of Used Clothing (Seth)<\/p>\n
Clothing in Papua New Guinea<\/p>\n
\u2013 Paragraph starts off by stating that the trade of clothing (borrowing, exchanging and swapping) is not a new concept for the world, and has been done since prehistoric people
\n\u2013 Papua New Guina
\n\u2013 Remote country, mainland of mountainous rainforest surrounded by scattered tropical islands
\n\u2013 Located between the Indonesian archipelago and north coast of Australia
\n\u2013 Main island of NG hosts some of the worlds most inaccessible communities, with limited contact with the modern world
\n\u2013 Clothing here is often very old and worn down
\n\u2013 Lots of stretched and stained shirts, long trousers that have been ripped or worn down to shorts
\n\u2013 Pieces of fabric knotted around their waists like louincloths
\n\u2013 Women may wear lap-laps: Simple wide pieces of fabric tied around the midriff, and maybe a meri blouse, a basic dress or top introduced by missionaries to encourage them to cover up
\n\u2013 Much of the clothing comes from second hand items from Australia or the United states
\n\u2013 Some show logos from their earlier lives (Australian Royal Air Force, to a t0shirt from the waiter at a chili’s grill)
\n\u2013 The few items of modern clothing are generally shared among rural villages
\n\u2013 Bungs
\n\u2013 Name for a tribal celebration
\n\u2013 People don ceremonial costumes that combine feathers, wood, bark and animal skins using techniques that are likely a millennia old
\n\u2013 Men wear fur headdresses, dyed grasses, and wraps woven from jungle vines
\n\u2013 Women wear sea shells traded from coastal regions threaed on necklaces and garlands of flowers
\n\u2013 Faces are also often painted
\n\u2013 These features (face paint, feathers, furs) are not everyday wear but part of the cultural life of the tribes
\n\u2013 \u201cIsolated tribes cherish their limited clothing resources as modern garments are precious and difficult to obtain\u201d
\n\u2013 Previous chapter talks about how the clothing industry spread across the glove, however in rural Papua NG there is little connection to the global economy
\n\u2013 Islated from the capitalist market and therefore many traditional approaches still persist
\n\u2013 Few modern clothes that reach them are second-hand imports from the global North
\n\u2013 \u201cThis chapter explores how used clothes have been shared, exchanged and traded between various communities at different historical moments, and how and why second-hand clothes are collected in the global North for resale to communities across the Global South\u201d<\/p>\n
Second-hand Clothing in Historical Contexts<\/p>\n
\u2013 In history, as clothing was generally very expensive and time-consuming to make, it was often shared between people who had little (as it is in Papua NG)
\n\u2013 British Museum has a Roman doll filled with textile rags, showing that even destroyed clothing was probably reused
\n\u2013 In medieval period, old clothing was taken from rich cities to be sold in poorer rural regions
\n\u2013 In Europe, good quality second-hand clothes were prized, and even as valuable to serve as an alternative to currency
\n\u2013 Throughout pre-modern history, used clothes were not discarded but instead passed between different social groups
\n\u2013 Records of second-hand clothing are hard to find (especially prior to improvements in communication)
\n\u2013 Italy 1407: Evidence of a trading guild that dealt in high quality clothes and other used goods in Florence
\n\u2013 Used clothes were also gifted from European feudal masters to their serfs, domestic staff and the local poor
\n\u2013 Evidence in Japan of the vibrant trade in used silk Kimonos
\n\u2013 Many people in this time were what the French called bricoleurs: Skilful or creative individuals who carefully reused textiles in clever ways
\n\u2013 Women would often work at home repairing clothing, until the twentieth century with the development of cheap clothing
\n\u2013 English beggars would often go around looking extremely poor and begging for clothes, which they would then sell to dolly shops (present day thrift stores)
\n\u2013 In parallel with the development of industrial production of apparel, used clothing was gradually becoming something that was considered deviant and associated with crime
\n\u2013 Damaged and deteriorating clothes that could not be re-worn were recycled, providing an input for early industrial processes
\n\u2013 Marx discusses a processes were female workers are exploited in the rag trade
\n\u2013 \u201cThe most shameful, the most dirty and the worst paid kinds of labour, and one on which women and young girls are by preference employed is the sorting of rags\u201d
\n\u2013 \u201cThey are used for manure, for making bedflocks, for shoddy, and the raw material of paper\u201d
\n\u2013 \u201cThe rag-sorters are the medium for the spread of small-pox and other infecious diseases, and they themselves are the first victims\u201d
\n\u2013 Used clothes have been traded around the world for more than a century
\n\u2013 These networks rose both as an outcome and a response to the changing nature of industrial garment manufacturing and the rise of capitalism
\n\u2013 With the growth in clothing manufacturing and rapid development of North America and Europe in the 19th century, the availability of new clothing improved and second-hand distribution became increasingly formalized as a type of charitable handout
\n\u2013 Passed from rich to poor as a charitable donations
\n\u2013 Was often mediated through religious groups, so that people could donate to the church and could avoid direct contact with undesirable underclass and the criminal elements associated with the rag trade
\n\u2013 \u201cPut simply, donors could feel good about themselves\u201d
\n\u2013 The advent of Fordist production and the ‘golden age’ of capitalism filled marketplaces with consumer goods and provided people with disposable income for new clothing
\n\u2013 Modern world repair and reuse of clothing was discouraged
\n\u2013 Wearing out clothes and retaining them did not drive free-market development, it was reliant on a continuous cycle of consumption
\n\u2013 B. Earl Puckett \u2013 A leading clothing retailer in United States
\n\u2013 \u201cBasic utility cannot be the foundation of a prosperous apparel industry. We must accelerate obsolescence\u201d
\n\u2013 Manufactured obsolescence, promoted by migrating fashion trends and endless cycles of new production, brought more and more clothes to the market, which would then translate how people saw used clothing through the 20th century
\n\u2013 Clothes were less likely to be used again in the household and were increasingly exchanged in market transacts or donated for reuse
\n\u2013 In cities like Chicago and Philadelphia, prior to WW2, Ragmen would go door to door and trade new commodities (pins, pans and needles) for clothing
\n\u2013 Ragmen would then sell these clothes to otherpoorer households, and ripped and torn garments were wholesaled as shoddy for use in industrial processes (machine wiping or furniture stuffing)
\n\u2013 Formalized culture of donating clothing for reuse also grew, and organizations like the Salvation Army developed extensive networks for collecting and distributing second-hand clothes
\n\u2013 Stores opened up in the UK and North America for providing used clothing at a cheap cost to the urban poor (Value Village, YMCA, etc)<\/p>\n
Waste and Clothing Consumption<\/p>\n
\u2013 The ways in which people thought of used clothing were transformed in the developed economies by the end of the 20th century
\n\u2013 Old clothing became viewed as a form of garbage, and was often thrown away beside food waste and empty packaging
\n\u2013 In the UK, an estimated 1.7 Billion dollars in used clothing goes to landfills each year
\n\u2013 \u201cPurchasing and discarding objects are forms of freedom which override saving an repair\u201d
\n\u2013 Drives the market forward
\n\u2013 \u201cFashion, by its very nature, is effective in restricting social mobility and places consumers in a never-ending contest of purchases which contribute to expressing their identity\u201d
\n\u2013 \u201cGarments are priced far too low to reflect their true social and ecological value as capital mobility and excess global labor supply enable clothing firms to depress wages and avoid paying environmental costs\u201d
\n\u2013 Up to 70 percent of clothes in a household go unworn and unused (Inactive) as they lose their sense of being new or become unfashionable in the eyes of the owner
\n\u2013 Disposing of these old clothes and creating wardrobe space for the consumption of new commodities is central to the maintenance of capitalist production
\n\u2013 The demand for the American and European poor for second-hand clothes also fell away with the boom in affordable low-end value fashion sold by places such as Target and Walmet
\n\u2013 Encourage mass production by low-paid labor in the global South and continues to drive down real-term prices
\n\u2013 Large boom in the high-end fashion sector as well
\n\u2013 The rest of this chapter goes into explanation about how used clothing is collected and processed in the developed world and distributed to the third world market<\/p>\n
Second-hand clothing charities in the UK<\/p>\n
\u2013 Staines is a commuter town on the outskirts of London
\n\u2013 A dull, grey town that epitomizes Western Suburbia
\n\u2013 Contains many low cost mass market clothing retail stores (Gap, Tesco, TK Maxx, YMCA)
\n\u2013 Use promotional material to help encourage clothing donation
\n\u2013 Help reduce poverty, reduce landfill waste, de-clutter your life (Oxfam)
\n\u2013 Although clothing collection is generally good, there is a dark side to it
\n\u2013 An example of this is from national NGOs such as NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children)
\n\u2013 Distributed leaflets in Nottingham of an asian child in the aftermath of a disaster
\n\u2013 Image searches found it to be from Sichuan, China after an earthquake
\n\u2013 The leaflet stated it was helping children in under-developed countries to improve their welfare, but did not mention how they would do this or the name of any charities or organizations
\n\u2013 The only ID were false company registrations and mobile phone numbers
\n\u2013 This problem is also used in things like cancer research, where the pink ribbon is deliberately used to make you think you are donating to breast cancer
\n\u2013 The motivations for deception and theft from actual charitable companies stems from large profits made from exporting second-hand clothes
\n\u2013 Problem:
\n\u2013 Due to these false charitable organizations, many clothing donations enter the Global South as a means of generating money for companies, and not as actual donations for the people there. This is a problem that Brooks does not propose any solution to in the reading, however it seems that he does emphasize it as a large problem in<\/p>\n
The Commercial Trade in Second-hand Clothing<\/p>\n
\u2013 Despite the fake charity collections, many honest organizations such as the YMCA and a number of legitimate commercial companies operate in Europe and NA
\n\u2013 These donations are then transformed into marketable goods
\n\u2013 \u201cThe most recent estimates from the Department of the Environment and Rural Affairs show that 523000 tonnes of used lcothing items were collected in 2008 by the secondary textile industry\u201d
\n\u2013 This relates the 23% of the new textiles that were consumed during the same year
\n\u2013 The total volume of clothes recycled has undoubtedly increased since
\n\u2013 Similar processes occur in many countries of the Global North, including Australia, Canada, Germany, the US, etc
\n\u2013 Donated clothes are transformed from waste into re-sellable commodities by collecting charities and commercial recyclers in the global North that sort and grade these clothes for onward sale (This process begins in places like the YMCA shop in Staines)
\n\u2013 Pricing and marketing is undertaken by waged or voluntary workers to reduce costs
\n\u2013 This turns the gift into a commodity
\n\u2013 Because the need for these clothes is not high in places like Staine, other companies such as Choice Textiles take all their unsold shop waste
\n\u2013 They then take these clothes and sell them to overseas markets and worn-out items go for recycling
\n\u2013 Far more clothes are donated than actually old in the UK’s charitable stores
\n\u2013 \u201cDespite accounting for only a small segment of the total used clothing market, charity shops are important as the public face of the second-hand clothing trade. They are a symbolically influential part of the image and material culture of the used clothing system of provision, which encourages people to associate clothing donations with local charitable retail\u201d
\n\u2013 Many companies also sell partnership (through royalty fees) to other companies in order to operate under their name
\n\u2013 An example of this is Help the Aged, which distributes 30 million collect bags per year (13 million of their own, and 17 million from a company called Precycle which gives 50% of their profits to the charity)
\n\u2013 Most of this process is run by volunteers
\n\u2013 There is also a large recurring problem of the difficulty of tracking the transactions and processes that clothing goes through, as they are usually amalgamated and lack transparency
\n\u2013 An example is USA Planet Aid, which was criticed for only 28% of its 36.5 Million in spending going to international aid
\n\u2013 The lines between charity and commerce are becoming increasingly blurred in the second-hand clothing industry
\n\u2013 The British Heart Foundation estimates that only 5% on average is paid to a charity by its commercial partners
\n\u2013 \u201cA long-standing issue in the second-hand clothing sector is the outright theft of used clothing\u201d
\n\u2013 When the price of used clothing is around 1500$ per tonne, there is a large problem with the theft of donation bags
\n\u2013 Drivers of donation trucks are often threatened, their route maps demanded, and followed by unmarked trucks
\n\u2013 A similar problem occurs in Canada, where violent attacks are reported in turf wars between clothing collectors
\n\u2013 \u201c\u2018People are getting beat up because these things work as a territory [different organizations control certain areas]\u2026. We have orders from the company, like don\u2019t let competition around you.\u2019 This is not a new phenomenon; criminal elements have long been associated with the used clothing trade. In 1939 in the United States, for example, the Salvation Army complained that bags from door-to-door collections were being \u2018kidnapped\u2019 and \u2018hijacked’\u201d
\n\u2013 People were also shocked to hear that many of the clothing donated does not necessarily go straight to charity shops due to commercial partnerships with charities and charity shops
\n\u2013 Shea and Brennan
\n\u2013 These partnerships were made due to the established market in the Global North becoming less profitable, and developing countries offered new profitable markets to expand to
\n\u2013 Paul Ozanne of the Salvation Army believes people are quite comfortable that only a small proportion of the donated clothing will be worn again by people in need or sold locally, and that the majority is sold overseas to generate profit
\n\u2013 The evidence from Shea and Brennan suggests otherwise to this (See point two up from this)
\n\u2013 The UN has estimated that the second-hand clothing trade was valued at over 4.3$ billion in 2013, however this is likely and undervalue due to the prevalence of smuggled and stolen clothing
\n\u2013 3.9 million tonnes of old clothing were recorded as being exported globally in 2013
\n\u2013 This total does not include the domestically traded second-hand clothing
\n\u2013 The UK (the second largest exporter of used clothes) reported 612$ million (350000 tonnes) of used clothing to the top five destinations of Poland, Ghana, Pakistan, Ukraine and Benin (Usually from migrant communities as they have connections and entrepeneurial skills that charities lack)
\n\u2013 Importing of second-hand clothing to Africa is explored in depth in Chapter 6<\/p>\n
Oxfam Wastesaver: Processing Clothes for Export<\/p>\n
\u2013 Clothing must be processed before being exported to the GS (Sorting, grading, packaging)
\n\u2013 This usually is undertaken in large industrial units
\n\u2013 Oxfam is the second largest collector in Britain (approximately 3% total)
\n\u2013 Differs from most charities in that it has its own processing plant, Wastesaver, which is described by Tony Clark (general manager) as \u201cOxfam’s rag merchant in crude terms\u201d
\n\u2013 Wastesaver receives 200 tonnes of unsold goods from Oxfam shops per week, which accounts for 74% of all the charity’s donations
\n\u2013 The clothes are graded between export (60%), niche lines for sale in the UK (8-10%) and recycling (25-28%)
\n\u2013 The plant this is operated out of runs like a typical modern factory (conveyor belts, time cards, managers overseeing the labor process)
\n\u2013 Has two models of exporting clothing in either 40 ft or 20 ft containers
\n\u2013 This is standard practices in the used clothing trade
\n\u2013 Clients in the global south purchase the containers that contain 550-600 different bales (100 lb groups of clothing) of a different mixtures (ie. 35 bales of mens t-shirts, 2 bales of bras, etc)
\n\u2013 Oxfam requires payment in advance, as these containers are usually sold for 20,000E and would have people sometimes pay in cash in envelopes (Possible corruption) from African Companies
\n\u2013 The second method that Oxfam employs is an attempt to address some of the ethical issues that surround the trade
\n\u2013 Attempts to create local jobs by performing the sorting operation in groups of 450 kg bales from a sorting plant in Dakar, Senegal
\n\u2013 Sorts and grades clothing for sale by local traders
\n\u2013 They talk about how they pay the full duty in order to do this, and take a huge commercial disadvantage in-country in order to promote the used clothing trade on an ethical basis
\n\u2013 This is all discussed further in chapter 6<\/p>\n
The Second-hand and New Clothing Trades in Global Context<\/p>\n
\u2013 This part is the conclusion for the chapter, and summarizes what has been covered and explained
\n\u2013 The chapter has traced how the history of the second-hand trade has been important in structuring the contemporary systems of used-clothing provision
\n\u2013 Explains the long traditions of donating and gifting used clothing and today’s cultural pressures in the Global North
\n\u2013 \u201cSecond-hand clothing is sold as a commodity in the market-based transactions and primarily bought by the poor in the Global South. Consumption is served by the market\u201d
\nChapter 4 \u2013 Cotton is the Mother of Poverty (Seth)<\/p>\n
Africa and Global Markets<\/p>\n
\u2013 African cotton is exported to china to make thread for khaki and denim fabrics
\n\u2013 Africa offers a good client and water system able to sustain cotton growth
\n\u2013 Around Egypt with the Nile
\n\u2013 Many people in Malawi, Africa, are switching from tobacco to cotton as the market for cotton rises from Chinese and Asian textile manufacturers, and retail markets in the GN rise
\n\u2013 The next few paragraphs in this chapter just go on to explain the history of the Cotton growing trade
\n\u2013 \u201cAlthough pre-European locally produced commodities also formed patterns of exchange in the seventeenth century, eventually the balance of trade would shift decisively with greater European engagement in West Africa, not just by the Portuguese, but by other powers which followed in their wake\u201d
\n\u2013 The emergence of capitalism and the business mentalities that followed it enabled Europeans to dominate more profitable trade networks
\n\u2013 Cheaper mass-manufactured imports emerged from the early development of textile factories in Britain (and elsewhere) which undermined local African production
\n\u2013 This restricted the further development of early artisan manufacturing in Africa, explaining why industrial capitalism failed to develop in West Africa
\n\u2013 Independent African feudal leaders across the continent were easily supplanted by the English, Belgians, French, etc, who had superior arms, communications and other technologies.
\n\u2013 Allowed them to establish and grow trading networks in Africa, later to extend administrative and governing powers across it
\n\u2013 Caused violent wrestles between foreign sovereign powers and the local chiefs and kings who wanted to wrestle their executive powers from them
\n\u2013 Berlin conference in 1884 ‘Scramble for Africa’
\n\u2013 German chancellor Otto von Bismarck and other European representatives carved up Africa, giving nearly all of it to European control
\n\u2013 Eventually all of Africa would fall under European control, if not formal colonialism
\n\u2013 \u201cColonization transformed the mode of production as local economic systems built on tribute and tribal loyalties were forcibly integrated into a global, European-dominated capitalist political economy\u201d
\n\u2013 Colonialism had different effects on men and women
\n\u2013 Women generally cultivated the cash crops (cotton, tea, cocoa) while men undertook waged employment and handled the money
\n\u2013 \u201cExploitation was based on cultural difference, and through a cruel new mode of production surplus value was extracted from the labour of native people, by the colonial rulers paying low prices for crops, providing low wages for workers or enforcing high taxation on Africans, which left the continent severely impoverished\u201d<\/p>\n
Cotton in Colonial Mozambique<\/p>\n
\u2013 Prior to Portuguese colonialism, Mozambique was not a pre-capitalist paradise
\n\u2013 Indigenous societies had their own injustices, but colonialism led to a new level of severe oppression
\n\u2013 Colonialism began to expand much more quickly after the Berlin Conference of 1884 as the European leaders felt they had to show their control over their African parts
\n\u2013 Portugal, who was poor, led to harsh ad punitive demonstrations of authority in Africa
\n\u2013 They did not have the capital either to fund an initial investment into Africa in order to colonize
\n\u2013 Mozambique exported their cotton exclusively to Portugal until the early 1970s
\n\u2013 Every man between 18-55 was expected to pick 2.5 acres of cotton, and every man and women between 56-60 was expected to pick 1.5 acres of cotton<\/p>\n
Cotton and Structural Adjustment in Cote D’Ivoire<\/p>\n
\u2013 One key policy in Mozambique was price control, which meant that the price paid for their cotton was way below the world market rate
\n\u2013 However, in the past it has not always been abused and many African states inherited agricultural marketing boards that set prices
\n\u2013 \u201cOnce free from French colonialism, successful early economic development in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire was based on expanding export crop production, predominantly of coffee and cocoa, but also cotton\u201d
\n\u2013 Caisses de stabilisation \u2013 State Marketing Boards
\n\u2013 Cotton and other export crops began providing revenue to help government develop strategies in many independent African nations in 1960-early 80s
\n\u2013 One problem arose when cotton dropped from 5.05$\/kg to 1.34$\/kg in 2000
\n\u2013 Also, in the 1970s, Cote D’ivoire had been undertaking unsustainable government spending maintained by borrowing money and inaccurate future crop revenue predictions
\n\u2013 African nations made similar mistakes and they were then encouraged to borrow from the global market
\n\u2013 Led to struggles to keep up with debt repayments
\n\u2013 SAPs were then set up in Africa, which included things like reduced investment and freeze on government salaries
\n\u2013 These SAPs obviously had very negative effects on social and economic development in the GS
\n\u2013 \u201cThroughout much of Africa the impacts were great, bringing hardships to some of the most vulnerable communities, including the urban poor, who faced increased prices for basic necessities. African nations could not compete on the world market and SAPs hampered agricultural and industrial development as domestic markets for local produced goods lost protection. These crude programmes provided a shock to fragile economies, leading to stagnation\u201d
\n\u2013 SAPs also liberalized markets for agricultural products in Cote D’ivoire, removing marketing board price and exposing farmers to market price<\/p>\n
Economic Liberalization and Cotton Subsidies<\/p>\n
\u2013 Conditions in the 1990s and early 2000s improved for some farmers in West and Central Africa which led to reductions in poverty
\n\u2013 Despite positive trends, many question the sustainability of cotton prices as they are heavily influenced by US subsidies as well as the long-term downward trend in commodity prices
\n\u2013 Oxfam has raised this issue regarding Mali, the second largest cotton producer and one of the poorest countries in the world
\n\u2013 Trade-distorting subsidies and pressure from the World Bank and IMF to increase the role of the market are leading to the destabilization of rural livelihoods
\n\u2013 \u201cEconomic liberalization and the removal of price controls are policies promoted by decision-makers in the global North, especially bureaucrats in Washington, who advocate free trade as a solution to the problem of poverty in Africa\u2019s rural communities\u201d
\n\u2013 This may seem true, but the largest dispenser of cotton subsidies and price support until recent was the USA
\n\u2013 This shields them from price volatility and distorts the world cotton market by deflating international prices and allows American farmers to remain the largest exporters of cotton<\/p>\n
Chapter 5: Made in China and Africa (Jaskaran)
\n\u2022 Zambia China Mulungushi Textiles factory is on the northern outskirts of Kabwe which is a city in the centre of Zambia (pg. 118)
\no 1970s factory\/modern industrial plant
\no It was promoted for 4 decades as the focus of Zambian industrial development and an icon of Chinese-African friendship
\n\u2022 The factory was a failed attempt at industrial modernization proving uncompetitive in the global clothing marketplace (pg. 118)
\n\u2022 ZCMT was one of many failed African industrial project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)s (pg. 119)
\n\u2022 One a global scale sub-Saharan Africa manufactures a small proportion of finished clothestiny slice of new clothing consumption
\n\u2022 Beijing\u2019s rapid rise was due in part to its involvement in African clothing production
\n\u2022 China is the largest market for African cotton
\n\u2022 Chinese management approaches were introduced and rejected in African textile factories
\n\u2022 Africa was considered a new place for investment and a spatial fix for the over accumulation of Chinese capital
\n\u2022 Capital was invested via huge sovereign wealth fundsannual trade between China and Africa is currently more than $160 billion US
\n\u2022 Colonialism\u2019s impact remains through absence of development in the garment sectors
\n\u2022 Africa\u2019s experiences in textile\/clothing trade contributed to why economic performance and development was abysmal
\n\u2022 Clothing industry failed along with other industrial sectors, contributing to poverty
\n\u2022 China\u2019s national development benefitted from its involvement in Africa and established the world\u2019s largest clothing and textile sectors (pg. 119)
\n\u2022 China\u2019s influence over the global economy is due to (1) dramatic growth rate, (2) huge labour force, (3) an increasing openness (on its own terms) to trade (pg. 120)
\n\u2022 China exerts its influence through export of cheap goods AND the way Chinese firms and investors determine the relative value of labour, flows of investment, and prices of financial assets the global cost of manufactured products has been reduced by Chinese expansionaffects industrial development everywhere
\n\u2022 The rise of China, even though the Global South had the same potential workforce, was because Africa and South America were heavily indebted by SAPs and experienced social crises
\no Also quality of Chinese labour was better because workers were well educated, healthy, could self-manage (pg. 120)
\n\u2022 Economic success of China was NOT because of neoliberalism and a \u201crolling back\u201d of the state built by Mao-era government pre-1980s (pg. 121)
\n\u2022 Chinese reforms protected domestic economy, unlike the \u201cshock therapies externally imposed on Africa through structural adjustment programmes which suddenly and viciously cracked open markets\u201d (pg. 121)
\n\u2022 In early 1980s the Chinese state sector played the dominant role in clothing and textile exports and helped establish the industry, THEN private firms gradually took overmatchmakers then linked overseas investment to Chinese labour reserve (pg. 122)
\nAfrican Attempts at Industrial Modernization:
\n\u2022 Kenya built a large clothing sector in the 1960s under an import substitution industrial strategy (pg. 126)
\n\u2022 Nigerian clothing manufacturers employed 200 000 workers at its peak
\n\u2022 Zambia had over 25 000 workers in the 1980s, including in the ZCMT factory
\n\u2022 In the 1960s China began to build relations with Africahelped them build the massive Tanzania-Zambia railway (TAZARA) linking the Zambian copperbelt to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania
\n\u2022 Also supported the development of integrated cotton and clothing production programmes in 8 countries, each of which employed thousands of workers (pg. 126)
\n\u2022 ZCMT established between 1977-1981
\no Operated from 1982-1996 as a Zambian state-owned enterprise (pg. 126-127)
\n\u2022 Workers received high wages, steady welfare policy supporting employees and dependents with housing, education and health care (pg. 127)
\n\u2022 Pattern of production was similar to the Fordist model of industrial development found in European and North American clothing factories in the 1950s and 1960s
\n\u2022 Institutional pattern was that economic growth advanced capitalist countries in the post-war boom
\n\u2022 Zambia, Kenya, Ghana and others attempted to follow a different development model to China\u2019s low wage levels and exploitation of labour (pg. 127)
\n\u2022 Its capitalist social relations which enable labour exploitation was met by unbridled market forces that drive the value of labour-power down to a minimum (pg. 128)
\n\u2022 On a global scale, Fordist production approaches in clothing industries was becoming increasingly uncompetitive by the 1980s and 1990s
\n\u2022 High production costs in Europe, North America and Africa VS cheap manufacturing in China
\no This at some time Zambia and other African economies underwent economic liberal (pg. 128)
\n This transformed their labour practices and exposed their industries to increased domestic competition and reduced local market for clothing (pg. 128-129)
\n\u2022 Fordist-style modernization in Zambia broke down during period of economic crisis in the late 1980s-ealy 1990s (pg. 129)
\no Mines and other state enterprises were privatized
\n\u2022 Casualization is the feature of wage employment
\no Enabled greater surplus accumulation from workers\u2019 labour
\no Salaries decrease under casual conditions
\no Health care was avoided
\n\u2022 ZCMT was faced with financial difficulties
\no Individual increased competition
\no Began to declines from early 1990s
\n\u2022 ZCMT was forced to close in 1996
\n\u2022 Decrease in clothing factories across Africa in 1980s and 1990s\u201d\u2026the decline was shaped by the continents\u2019 neoliberal transformation\u201d
\n\u2022 African countries accumulated debts in the 1980s and were forced to implement SAPs
\no New political economy orthodoxy spread
\n\u2022 Governments were forced to adopt a new model based on laissez-faire free market economics
\n\u2022 Neoliberal model industrial development was only possible with reduced state control and liberalizing markets
\no \u201cIn reality these structural changes actually disadvantaged most African clothing manufacturers as governments were no longer able to protect textile factories and thus local markets contracted.\u201d
\n\u2022 Example of South Africaclothing industries declined as local retailers took advantage of market liberalization under the ANC government after 1994sourced clothing from Chinese and other Asian producers
\no Look at source 17 in book
\n\u2022 In Kenya clothing manufacturers had weak markets in towns and cities due to declining urban incomes (pg. 129)
\n\u2022 Decrease in demand for locally manufacturers new clothing in 1990s was combined with competition from cheap competitors AND used clothing from Global North countries (pg. 129-130)
\n\u2022 In Ghana textile and clothing employment fell by 80% from 1975-2000 (pg. 130)
\n\u2022 In Zambia it went down from 25 000 to below 10 000 in 2002
\n\u2022 In Nigeria the 200 000 person workforce almost disappeared
\nChina\u2019s New Investments in Africa:
\n\u2022 Economic liberalization opened African economies up new investment opportunities for foreign capital
\n\u2022 Late 1990s and early 2000s increased in Chinese engagement in Africamajor area of interest for policymakers and scholars
\n\u2022 Chinese investment was a new means of exploitation of natural resources such as Zambian copper and Sudanese oil
\n\u2022 Chinese foreign direct investment and trade had grown
\n\u2022 Many African populist media and NGO repots in the Global North and Africa had negative portrayals of Chinese people in Africa
\n\u2022 Western critics saw that Chinese corporations lacked basic human rights
\no It could have been concealed anger at their comparative economic advantage (pg. 130)
\no Also controversies on natural resource extraction and workers\u2019 safety (pg. 131)
\n\u2022 Chinese stage gave incentives to encourage clothing firms to expand overseas
\n\u2022 MFA developed because of competition from Asian manufacturers
\no Prior to 2005 there was special trade preferences given to Africa through the EU Lom\u00e9 arrangement
\no USA\u2019s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) gave African clothing products tariff-free access to the Global North
\n The Chinese took advantage of this
\no Resurrected the ZCMT (pg. 131)
\nCasualization of Labour Abuses at ZCMT:
\n\u2022 Another Chinese company invested in ZCMT in 1997 (pg. 132)
\n\u2022 Here was a social divide within the factory between the managed and managers (Africans VS Chinese ) (pg. 133)
\n\u2022 Introduced casualization and strict discipline
\n\u2022 Profits at the expense of welfare policies (pg. 133)
\n\u2022 \u201cIt was like slavery\u2026In Zambia there is unemployment. If you left this job you would not get work elsewhere\u2026\u201d (pg. 134)
\n\u2022 The capitalist mode drove wages down to below the subsistence level (pg. 134)
\n\u2022 Strict discipline =respect for regulations=increased speed and output=more profit (pg. 136)
\n\u2022 Global capitalist competitions in the clothing sector resulted in terrible working conditions (pg. 137)
\n\u2022 \u201cChinese managers\u2026were a conduit for neo-liberal globalization and introduced the new harsh working regime to Africa.\u201d
\n\u2022 Labour exploitation enabled them to extract more surplus-value from the workforce
\n\u2022 Foreign investment failed to lift Zambians out of poverty (pg. 137)
\n\u2022 Rapid capitalist development is dependent upon the exploitation of labour in the Global South (pg. 138)
\n\u2022 Zambia introduced a minimum wage in June 2006 (pg. 139)
\no The factory closed down as a response to protests and minimum wage\/benefits demands in December 2006
\n\u2022 Trade agreements such as AGOA began to expire in 2005 as the MFA drew to a close (pg. 139)
\no Exposed African production to competition in home and foreign markets (pg. 139-140)
\n\u2022 Macroeconomic climate made ZCMT uncompetitive (pg. 140)
\n\u2022 Author proposes that \u201cInstead of debating the consequences of wage suppression for one set of clothing makers compared to those in another location in a temporary stalling of a race to the bottom for labour standards, the problem of the uneven development of capitalism needs to be confronted\u201ddoesn\u2019t give an actual solution yet (pg. 141)<\/p>\n
Chapter 6: Second-Hand Africa (Jaskaran)
\n\u2022 NFL and the evangelical Cristian charity World Vision sends clothing of Superbowl losers\u2019 team to the Global South (mostly Africa) (pg. 143)
\no Get a hefty tax deduction from this
\n NBA, NHL, MLB do the same
\n\u2022 These donations undermine local clothing markets and contribute to forging relations of dependence
\no Deprives poor people of work and dignity (pg. 143)
\n\u2022 Donated items are resold by recipients (pg. 144)
\n\u2022 \u201cWeak domestic clothing industries lost protection as economic liberalization was introduced via the IMF and World Bank-sponsored structural adjustment programmes.\u201d (pg. 144)
\n\u2022 Imported used clothing and East Asia outcompeted locally produced goods while factories closed across the continent (pg. 144-145)
\n\u2022 Export destinations were picked by cheapest shipping routes to available markets and depend on existing trade geographies (pg. 146)
\n\u2022 The used-clothing system of provision was a shifting process rather than a structure
\n\u2022 Demand exceeds supply across Africa (pg. 146)
\n\u2022 Suppliers control the packing listallows them to maximize profit which shows that exporters in the Global North have ascendency over their customers in the Global South (pg. 149-150)
\no They include low-grade, unpopular items in batches of high-grade products to make more profit (pg. 150)
\n\u2022 \u201cBusiness strategies in the Global North increase the profitability of exports, but reduce the opportunities for African companies to accumulate capital from the import and sale of second-hand clothing .\u201d (pg. 150)<\/p>\n
Nigeria: Economic Turmoil
\n\u2022 Smuggling of 2nd-hand clothing in Africa\u2019s most populous and pivotal country (pg. 152)
\n\u2022 Super-rich cities of Victoria Island and Lekki VS mainland Lagos which is poverty-stricken (pg. 153)
\n\u2022 Affluence in Nigeria comes from vast oil reserves which have been pumped out of the Niger Delta for 5 decades and account for 90% of export earnings
\no Hasn\u2019t brought development though (pg. 153)
\n\u2022 State was authoritarian and managed to make the $400 billion in oil wealth disappear since the 1960s (pg. 154)
\n\u2022 Lack of taxation results in no social welfare programs
\n\u2022 State attempted to protect domestic clothing industries but the policies failed
\n\u2022 In 1989 almost 96% of tariff line for textiles and clothing were subject to import prohibition regimesattempt to promote domestic manufacturing and wean the economy off oil dependency (pg. 154)
\n\u2022 Followed an import substitution approach to industrialization (pg. 155)
\no Weren\u2019t implemented effectively because of the weakness of the state institutions and Nigeria was one of the largest markets for 2nd-hand clothing in the world
\n\u2022 75-80% of used clothing in West Africa is finally retailed in Nigeria (pop. Of 160 million) (pg. 155)
\n\u2022 \u201cCorruption is a reality of the socio-political context of many states in Africa, but is also an outcome of opportunities presented by the weakening of African governments in response to structural adjustments and destabilization cause by neocolonialism\u201d (pg. 157)
\n\u2022 \u201cEconomic liberalization has not provided opportunities for individual impoverished Africans to become entrepreneurs and rise out of poverty; it has instead served the interests of a narrow elite\u201d (pg. 157)
\n\u2022 \u201cWith the liberalization of the second-hand clothing market, the already deteriorating textiles and clothing industry was severely affected\u2026as a result, some of the major factories could not compete with the cheaper prices offered by the second-hand clothing industry and they were forced to close\u2026the consequences to the clothing industry were devastating.\u201d (pg. 158)
\n\u2022 Factories failed when state-owned firms were privatized and suffered from profiteering and poor management (pg. 159)
\n\u2022 SAPs weakened border controlsincreased competitive pressure (pg. 159)<\/p>\n
Chapter 5: Made in China and Africa (Nargis)
\n\u2022 Zambia China Mulungushi Textile Factory- Zambian & Chinese government, partnered up and tried to revive the factories in Africa that had failed within the economy
\n\u2022 Africa\u2019s failed attempt at industrial modernization proving uncompetitive in the global clothing market
\n\u2022 China- largest market for African clothes- clothes from China sold in every single street market
\n\u2022 Africa\u2019s experiences in textile & clothing trade illustrate some of the reasons for the dire economic performances and the absence of development across the continent
\n\u2022 Africa- downward spiral of clothing industry- this helps explain causes\/consequences of poverty
\n\u2022 China- Established world\u2019s largest clothing\/textile sectors- this helped drive national development
\n\u2022 Chinas influence over global economy due to 3 factors: 1) Dramatic growth rate 2)huge labour force 3)increasing openness to trade
\n\u2022 Global influence exerted through cheap goods & the ways Chinese firms and investors determine the value of labour, flows of investment, & prices of financial assets
\n\u2022 China- competitive, can produce labour intensive products on a massive scale
\n\u2022 Reasons why China was an attractive destination for surplus capital investment in 1980s & 1990s: Workers well educated, healthy, had capacity for self- management
\n\u2022 Boom in garment sector: state sector played dominant role in clothing\/textile exports, helped est. industry, then private firms took over
\n\u2022 East Asia and Global North used Cultural ties to help open up new territory for capital
\n\u2022 State established Special Economic Zones (SEZs) along Eastern seaboard to provide tax inducements to attract foreign investment
\n\u2022 Early 1990s- common for female workers to spend 7 days\/70 hours a week in factories
\n\u2022 China expanded to low cost areas\/low wage labour, moved to the coastal factories
\n\u2022 Work for migrant employees: hard, conditions were difficult, tasks were repetitive, often physically demanding, industrial accidents common
\n\u2022 Young women were separated from families, lived in dormitories with 6 or more to one room, sharing one toilet- example of labour exploitation
\n\u2022 ^ this in turn lead to industrial growth, \u201cChinese Prison Labour\u201d
\n\u2022 \u201cSweatshop\u201d becoming ubiquitous phrase with poor labour standard in Chinese clothing factories
\n\u2022 After outcries from NGOs. Churches, student groups, clothing companies began to introduce codes of conduct\/ethical standards to the factories of their suppliers (This can be used as an example for a solution to labor exploitation)
\nAfrican attempts at Industrial modernization
\n\u2022 Modern clothing production believes to offer engine for economic growth & social transformation
\n\u2022 Zambia was model for African development, moving towards economic & political independence through industrialization
\n\u2022 Workers in mining sectors: had high wages, housing, education, & health care
\n\u2022 Mining sector: pattern of production, similar to the Fordist model of industrial development found in European and North American clothing factories in the 1950s and 1960s
\n\u2022 ^ brought economic growth to countries in the post war boom
\n\u2022 Zambia: fordist style failed during period of national economic crisis in late 1980s and early 1990s
\n\u2022 Government forced to adopt a model based on laissez- faire free market economies
\n\u2022 Within this neoliberal model, industrial development only pressured to be possible by reducing state control and liberalizing markets
\n\u2022 ^disadvantaged most African clothing manufactures as government were no longer able to protect textile factories, thus local markets contracted
\nChinas new investment in Africa
\n\u2022 Investments from China: led to new exploitation of natural resources (Zambian copper & Sudanese\u2019s oil)
\n\u2022 These investment built Mozambique national football stadium & Malawi\u2019s parliament building (example of Global South escaping a sense of poverty)
\n\u2022 With China\u2019s Helpance, Mulungushi factories machinery began to produce again
\n\u2022 Employers pay low wages & do not proved social welfare benefits in recognition of workers basic rights (casual conditions for employment are common throughout clothing industries in the global south) *example of labour exploitation*
\n\u2022 Zambia: Wages very low for standard of living- could not provide for their families, just part of households livelihood survival strategy
\nDisciple and Profit
\n\u2022 Changes to work patterns at Mulungushi made workers feel like \u201cslaves\u201d or \u201cschool children\u201d
\n\u2022 Workers exploited by non-stop work & unsafe working environments
\nLabour discontent and the Closure of Mulungushi Textiles
\n\u2022 Workers organize collectively by going against their ill- treatment by Chinese managements at Mulungushi- even though the workers went through with the strike, no action was taken to help the workers
\n\u2022 Closure of Mulungushi due to market forces, financial difficulties, pressure for higher wages, & discontent workers<\/p>\n
Chapter 6: Second-hand Africa (Nargis)
\n\u2022 Every year, large surplus of unwanted championship merchandise, donated
\n\u2022 People argue that these donations are \u201cbad aid\u201d as these clothing items are all already available in the countries that are being donated to
\n\u2022 Argument against: gifts undermine local clothing markets & contributes to forging relationships of dependence, depriving poor people of work & dignity
\nSecond-hand Clothes in Africa
\n\u2022 Sub-Saharan Africa: one of major marketplaces for second-hand clothing imports in 1980s
\n\u2022 Weak domestic clothing industries lost protection as economic liberalization was introduced via IMF & World Bank- sponsored structural adjustment programmes
\n\u2022 Imported used clothing & cheaper new garments and textiles from East Africa, outcompeted locally produced goods while factories closed across continent *example of how Global south remains in poverty*
\n\u2022 Used clothing provides major source of garments in many African Nations
\n\u2022 Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania ( MeTL)- largest textile manufactures in Sub-Saharan Africa
\n\u2022 ^ one of the first businesses in trade- had sufficient capital as well as existing warehouses and distribution network *example of solutions for Global South to get out of Poverty*
\n\u2022 Tanzania\u2019s had diasporic connections in the U.S and Europe who could link MeTl to supplies of used clothing bales
\n\u2022 Cultural networks builds trust between supplies and markets and helped decrease exports of low-quality stock
\n\u2022 Firms & individuals invest in building relationships and may depend on family or kinship ties rather than minimizing costs *this can be used as an example as to why Global South has issues getting out of poverty*
\n\u2022 Trading relationships are built on shared cultural heritage and international laws
\n\u2022 ^ connections and personal ties can help ensure profitability
\nNigeria: Economic Turmoil
\n\u2022 Affluence in Nigeria primarily comes directly or indirectly from oil reserves- accounts for 90% export earnings
\n\u2022 Oil wealth brought little meaningful development to most Nigerians, leaving them as poor consumers who live in poverty
\n\u2022 Quality of life of average is extremely low
\n\u2022 States with weak institutions and poor fiscal management- weakens the inflow of money from natural resources exports in several ways:
\n\u2022 ^Oil revenues reduce the impetus for domestic taxation, Government institution and bureaucracies lack authority, budgets are not managed transparently
\n\u2022 Oil shapes all economic activity in Nigeria
\n\u2022 Import controls were never implanted effectively due to the weaknesses of state institutions and the fact that Nigeria is one of the largest markets for second-hand clothing in the world
\n\u2022 For Nigerians- used clothing = cheaper alternative to expensive domestically produced garments
\n\u2022 Second-hand clothing trade has negative impacts on African development due to illegal trade practices
\nUsed Clothing Imports and the Decline of African Clothing Industries
\n\u2022 Used clothing has outcompeted & displaced African clothing manufactures in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Nigeria
\n\u2022 Second- hand clothing importers- \u201ckilling\u201d local textile and garment sectors
\n\u2022 ^ however, not main cause of clothing industries failing; ultimate cause of crises has been economic liberalization
\n\u2022 ^ incomes decline, reducing Africans purchasing power, in turn depressing demand
\n\u2022 Factories failed when state owned firms privative and suffered from poor management
\n\u2022 Clothes able to flow between countries when SAPs weakened boarder control
\n\u2022 ^ increasing competitive pressure for African produces in regional markets<\/p>\n
Chapter 7 (German)
\nGrowth without development
\np. 161
\n– Mozambique held up by the main Western donors as one of the continent\u2019s major success stories\u201d
\np.162
\n– \u201cexample of a nation that has moved from warfare to peace and stability, as well as from economic stagnation to rapid growth\u201d
\no Followed dual policy prescription of democracy and pro-market liberal reforms
\no It is portrayed as a success story for its growth, but poverty is still high and its political story is being altered to fit this narrative
\no \u201cthese platitudes are for an international audience\u201d
\n Goal: show other nations that they should adopt market-friendly policies and structural adjustment programs.
\no Political success one part (Fremilo) has governed the country since independence in 1975.
\np. 163
\n– Industrialization constrained by: Portuguese and then by a civil war supported by white rulers from Rhodesia
\n– Insecurity restricted the emergence of clothes manufacturing
\n– Structural adjustment programs implemented in 1987
\n– Peace has been hard-won, but the country has not been successful in combatting poverty.
\no Peace led to growth in the late 1990s, and the establishment of an aluminum industry which employs very few people.
\no \u201cdiscoveries of coal and gas have fuelled economic expansion, although financial gains are unevenly distributed\u201d
\n– \u201cgrowth has as yet created limited jobs and has had a less than desirable impact on poverty reduction\u201d
\np. 164
\n– followed a laissez-faire approach towards national development
\n– Did not rely on labour-intensive industry but instead on the extraction of natural resources
\no GDP growth, but limited employment
\n– Small clothes and textile industries have done poorly since collectivism was abandoned
\no Factories were privatized: \u201cowners lacked capital, management capacity and competence\u201d
\n Bosses stripped factories to enrich themselves
\n Factories used for selling second-hand clothing
\n Deindustrialization was repeated in many different industries.
\no Second-hand clothing was allowed into the reformed market.
\np. 165
\n– SAPs: fall of incomes and decline of basic services severely affected businesses
\no Ex: Texmoque, a small private textile factory, was forced to close due to a lack of materials and electricity
\no Early 2000s, clothing factories began to be left idle
\n \u201cfailure of local manufacturing provided further opportunity for cheap imports of new and used clothing\u201d
\n– There has been modest growth in Mozambique\u2019s clothing sector because \u201cexport oriented factories have relocated from South African to southern Mozambique due to lower wage levels\u201d
\n– South Africa sets unrealistically progressive labour market policies which makes profits impossible
\no In Mozambique, there is a race to the bottom for labour standards in the garment sector
\np. 166
\n– Current economic policies: \u201cMozambicans unlikely to ever get jobs in industries like clothes making, and many more have to engage in informal ways of making a living, such as selling imported second-hand clothes\u201d
\n– \u201cused clothes are the only garments available for the impoverished population\u201d
\no Second hand clothes from Australia, Europe, North America arrive to Mozambique via the Indian Ocean and then get sold
\no Despite reforms, arranging imports requires contact, to avoid confiscation and additional fees
\n State-capture (the confiscation of good for the personal gain of a political party) has forced importers to rely on under-the-table payments and bribes
\no Misuse of state office has contributed to inequality: only a few have access to imports.
\np. 167
\n– Used clothes are imported from the global North by an array of firms, they go through grading and sorting facilities (somewhere with cheap labour) and then re-exported.
\no Throughout the whole chain of supply, we take advantage of special economic zones and low regulations.
\np. 168
\n– \u201cimport firms like Maputo have specialist warehouses (armazens) where second hand clothing bales are stored and sold. Local market traders buy the intact bales and sell the individual clothing items to consumers\u201d
\no \u201cshipments of second-hand clothing are irregular and the inconsistency of supply creates problems\u201d
\n– Warehouses try to get rid of their merchandise as soon as possible, so they sell in bulk to a handful of local merchants who dictate prices
\n– Two main risks exist in second-hand clothing trading:
\no Currency fluctuations
\no Poor quality clothing.
\np.169
\n– \u201cRisks to profits are passed on from wholesalers to market traders, reflecting the power relations in this system of provisions\u201d
\no Importers\u2019 contracts with suppliers are in U.S dollars
\n Mozambique currency weakens, and the price goes up, but if the Mozambique current strengthens, the price remains the same
\n– Warehouses and politicians have close ties
\n– Price inflation is cause for complaint, but the worst this that happens is bas quality stock
\n– Stock quality is the major factor in profit
\no Unequal relationship between importers ad market traders because: all of the risks are taken by the market traders
\np.170
\n– Bales are sold sealed and unopened, the local traders must deal with the varying quality
\n– Hygiene concerns are a practical concern and a matter of dignity
\no Wet articles can damage an entire package
\no Ghana, for this reason, has banned second-hand underwear, to the disdain of some consumed (second-hand is still better than some new products).
\n Exemplifies inequality in global clothing systems of provision
\n– Each bale bought is a game of chance.
\np. 171
\n– Not only quality but also size is a gamble second hand clothing form the United States is too big because Americans are fat bastards.
\n– Some garments still have the tag of used-clothing retail shops where they were not sold
\np. 172
\n– Research that has emerged has tended to paint a positive picture on account of the employment created by the second-hand clothing industry.
\no \u201cvery valuable self-employment opportunities for informal traders, as well as advantages for consumers and the economy as a whole\u201d
\no \u201csecond-hand clothing trade directly or indirectly affects 5 million people through employment and income generation\u201d
\n Simone Field
\np.173
\n– Research has highly overestimated the amount of people affected by this industry
\no Central Bureau of Statistics (Ghana), states about 103961.
\no 8 percent of the total of small and medium sized entreprises.
\np.174
\n– Some start trading with money from other trades or with credit from moneylenders
\no Retailing used clothing is a livelihood born out of necessity because of the SAPs.
\np.175
\n– Price variations add risk to the business model
\no Variable clothing trends in the global North can affect the livelihood of vendors because of the business model
\n Market traders can sell used shirts for double the warehouse price, but frequently remain with the same stock for a long time \u2013 days on end with no sales.
\n It is the relative movement, not the prices, that determines profits
\n\u2022 Slow sales and poor quality stock means vendors are unable to escape poverty.
\np.176
\n– Second-hand clothes trading is a relatively good job, but vendors are still very poor.
\no Variability of items makes saving money hard (and impossible to expand)
\no Vendors look to a future that could provide them with formal work
\no Working in the market is an adaptive response to the lack of development
\np. 177
\n– One significant importer has an alternative business model
\no Humana ADPP sells used clothes in its own shops
\no Provides job opportunities and cheap clothing
\no Profits fund HIV\/AIDS project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)s
\no Collects clothes in global north themselves.
\np. 178
\nHumana ADPP operates under many names worldwide and is associated with illegal activities. Its founder is a wanted man.
\np. 179
\n– Humana highlights the concealed trade practices and criminality that are prevalent in the international second-hand clothing trade
\n– The poor in Africa cannot dwell on the controversies associated with used clothing systems of provision poverty frames their purchasing decisions.
\np. 180
\n– Graph
\np. 182
\n– \u201cPeople do things in Africa to revalue used clothing\u201d
\no Redefines used clothing as new garments
\n– \u201cThey are reaction to availability and using labor to add, enhance or select value\u201d
\n– Cultural diffusion affects the symbolic value of each product
\no \u201cInternational media presents aspiration imagery that in turn influences the clothing industry
\np. 183
\n– \u201cFashion tastes in the Global South are influenced by the Northern dominated new fashion systems of provision, which affects the symbolic value of second-hand clothing\u201d
\n– What is consumed is an adaptive response to the available goods
\n– Decision making is framed by the affordability and material use-value of garments
\n– \u201cConsumption in the global North is restricting the vibrancy of clothing culture in impoverished communities\u201d
\nChapter 8 (German)
\nOld Clothes and New Looks
\np.186
\n– Old and vintage clothing plays a role in comminities around the world<\/p>\n
p.187
\n– Graph
\np. 188
\n– \u201cevidence shows how some individuals give textiles a new lease of life and re-create their own creolized trends\u201d
\n– \u201cretro second-hand clothing emerged as a countercultural practice when people began to browse markets, charity shops and thrift shops out of curiosity rather than necessity\u201d
\np. 189
\n– \u201cInterest in vintage clothing has crossed over and steadily become co-oprted into the mainstream as retro trends are remade by fast fashion brands\u201d
\no \u201ccertain used clothing articles become invested with enhanced symbolic value\u201d depending on the social context.
\np. 190
\n– \u201ccultural \u2018progress\u2019 should be considered critically, as urban change often results in displacements and uneven development\u201d
\no He is referring to the \u201cgentrification in the North\u2019s global cities\u201d
\np. 191
\n– New designers try to recreate the \u201clive-in\u201d model
\n– \u201cbefore second-hand jeans are considered valuable, a highly specific type of labour activity is required\u201d
\no \u201cthis type of work can create new value and wealth\u201d
\np. 192
\n– \u201csurplus is produced during these various specialized labour activities and the cost of vintage goods is inflated\u201d
\no Vintage clothing \u201cis continually co-produced as the symbolic value is enhanced when it market in different social contexts:\u201d
\no Consumers are not \u201cpaying for the cost of a item, but supporting a system of provision\u201d
\n– \u201cCultural economy that surrounds consumption [\u2026] is all part of the social landscape that enables vintage clothing systems of provision\u201d
\np. 193
\n– vintage fashion: bringing items with use-value back to the market and amplifying their symbolic value
\np. 194
\n– \u201cthis system of provision was not spawned by market relations alone; it depended upon particular and cultural events, which shaped production and consumption
\no ex: second hand jeans industry of American soldiers in Japan emerged out of conquest and occupation
\np. 195
\n– Despite existing local brands, there is consumer necessity for vintage U.S products
\np. 196
\n– Even if Japan exports the best jeans all over the world, there is still demand for vintage U.S products.
\np. 197
\n– Second-hand clothing in Papua New Guinea comes from Australia, mirroring the overall dependency of the country on Australia.
\np. 199
\n– As with many developing nations, Papua New Guineau has grown to become dependent on used clothing imports.
\n– \u201cSystems of provision are shaped by interactions between cultura and political economy\u201d
\np. 200
\n– India: hub for sorting and grading second-hand clothes from North America to be re-exported in even poorer areas.
\no Destination for recycling rags and clothing waste
\np. 202
\n– Philippines: flourishing clothing industry that produces for both the domestic market and the global North, but also a burgeoning second-hand clothing trade.
\no Second-hand clothing may be of higher quality than locally produced goods.
\np. 203
\n– Market traders have shifted from selling new local to used foreign clothes because of higher profits
\no Shows inequalities of globalization
\no Some people who manufacture may end buying their own products but used years later.
\no Area of consumption of new clothes rich
\no Areas of production and consumption of second-hand clothes poor
\n Reinforced by the system of provision
\n– Solution: upcycling old clothes as the basis for fresh fashions.
\np. 204
\n– \u00acWoman in Mozambique feels like she is creating something beautiful instead of just reselling what the rich did not want
\np. 205
\n– Exports of second-hand clothes forge relationships of dependency between the global North and South.
\nChapter 7: Persistent Poverty (Veronika)<\/p>\n
Growth without development in Mozambique<\/p>\n
o Mozambique is widely championed as an example of nation that has moved from warfare to peace and stability, as well as from economic stagnation to rapid growth. It is believed that it was achieved by following the dual Western policy prescriptions of dmocracy and pro-market liberal economic reforms.
\no It is true that the country was in peace for over twenty years and experienced economic growth. However, Mozambique is a place of persistent poverty where levels of impoverishment rival those of war-torn states. (state experienced a growing economy without a sustained and meaningful reduction in poverty)
\no Mozambique has been ruled by Frelimo party since gaining independence from Portugal in 1975. Frelimo led the freedom struggle and later fervently supported Mandela’s ANC through the final years of apartheid.
\no Frelimo was once dedicated to Marxism. However, over 4 decades Frelimo has faced many challenges, which have made it difficult to steer the nation away from impoverishment and have led man of the party cadres to abandon their socialist ideology
\no Mozambique’s industrial development was aggressively constrained: by Portuguese colonialism and later by civil war (fuelled by support of insurgents from the white minority regimes in neighboring Rhodesia and South Africa) –> Mozambique was left desperately poor.
\no Under pressure from West –> World Bank and IMF inspired structural adjustment programme was implemented in 1987
\no Peace was made in 1992, after Frelimo embraced further free market reforms under the guidance of donors –> however, no success in combating poverty
\no piece dividend led to growth in 1990s and establishment of of an important aluminum processing industry –> but which employs few people; discoveries in coal and gas reserves fuelled economic expansion –> financial gains unevenly distributed.
\no “growth has as yet created limited jobs and has had a less than desirable impact on poverty reduction ” (African Development Bank)
\no Frelimo moved in different direction –> embraced economic liberalization. –> new policies have not fostered the type of economic growth that is based on the establishment of old fashioned labor-intensive industry –> but promoted extraction of natural resources –> GDP growth but limited employment.
\no As a result, private owners lacked capital, management capacity and competence.
\no The pattern of decentralization was repeated in other economic sectors such as cashew-nut processing, flour mills and furniture manufacturing
\no Industry stugnated. –> clothing sector faced myriad problems because of the wider socio-economic impacts of SAPs in Mozambique. –> urban incomes fell. (e.g. on p.165 top paragraph)
\no since mid-2000s growth in clothing sector, but 2000 workers only. One of the reasons of growth –> export-oriented factories have relocated from South Africa to southern Mozambique due to lower wage levels.<\/p>\n
Second-hamd clothing imports and wholesale<\/p>\n
o Second-hand clothing come from Australia, Europe and North America –> sold in Mozambique –> exported too Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia
\no Corruption is commonplace in Mozambique –> state capture by a narrow elite within Frelimo means that importers have to make backhanded and under-the-table payments to ensure their goods are allowed into the country
\no Misuse of state office contributed to rising inequality and explains why economic growth in not reacting the poorest Mozambicans.
\no UN data shows that $55,3 million worth of used clothing was exported to Mozambique in 2012, equal to 52 million tonnes of garments, or the equivalent of 99 million pairs of jeans or 423 million T-shirts.
\no Import firms in Maputo have specialist warehouses (armazens) where clothing bales are stored and sold.
\no Shipments of second-hand clothing are irregular and the inconsistency of supply creates problems.
\no Armazens send text messages to traders advertizing new and discounted second-hand clothing bales. –> the rate of transactions is an important determiner of profitability. –> Armazens attempt to accelerate their rate of transactions in order to gain a quick return on their investment
\no Two main risks in in second hand clothing trade are currency fluctuations and poor-quality clothing.–> when Mozambican metical weakens, importers increase prices. However, when the dollar falls against the metical, prices are not reduced by the armazens. –> market traders complain, but have never unable to end this practice.
\no Stock quality is the major factor of profitability –> bales are sold ‘blind’ –> if lucky, can get lots of good material. –> armazens fo not offer refunds for bad quality clothing.
\no Hygene issue are both a practical concern and a matter of dignity. –> Ghana banned importing underwear for that reason.
\no Another problem –> size of clothing –> often too large for Mozambicans<\/p>\n
Work in the second-hand clothing sector<\/p>\n
\u2022 Vendors are risk takers –> have to work hard to in the market to retail second-hand clothes to poor customers, attempting to maximize prices whilst maintaining turnover
\n\u2022 Traders –> specialize on selling certain types of clothes –> they are risk-averse –> they know local preferences and stick with it. (p.174 second paragraph more detail and e.g.)
\n\u2022 The average income of second-hand traders in Xipamanine is around $5,40 a day
\n\u2022 Trading second-hand clothing represents a step up compared to other types of market work, such as selling vegeables or soap, but traders are still very poor and therefore experience difficulties
\n\u2022 Working in the market –> adaptive response which compensates for the absense of development and other opportunities in Mozambique, rather than a livelihood which should be celebrated.<\/p>\n
The unusual case of Humana-ADPP<\/p>\n
\u2022 Humana-ADPP is an international organization that imports used clothes to Mozambique as well as to neighboring countries such as Malawi and Zambia
\n\u2022 Humana retails 12 shops in Mozambique
\n\u2022 Provides poor people with the opportunity to purchase low-cost clothing
\n\u2022 Profits are said to go to fund education and HIV\/AIDS
\n\u2022 The organization TRAID in the UK, worked with the charity commission to close down Humana UK due to concerns over how the organization was managed and funded
\n\u2022 Leader of Humana operated under a baffling variety of names and spheres of interest, under names such as ‘Gaia’, ‘Planet Aid’, ‘Tvind’ –> was associated with illegal activities in Africa, Europe, USA<\/p>\n
Shopping for second-hand clothes in Mozambique<\/p>\n
o Poverty frames purchasing decisions
\no There are new and used clothes in Xipamanine market
\no New items –> of low quality as they are made to narrow cost margins be sold at affordable prices to pooer people
\no Material of used clothes –> greater that affordable new clothing, as they were produced for a more affluent class of consumers in Australia, Europe.
\no Despite poverty in Mozambique there is a degree of differentiation in consumption –> along tree-lined avenues, near offices, shoes, rucksacks and handbags are sold.
\no Tailoring activities occur –> second-hand clothes can be altered to give them greater value, yet a new commodity is not truly being produced.
\no While culture is important, what is consumed is an adaptive response to the available goods –> the first priority of the poor is to meet basic needs.
\nChapter 8: Old Clothes and new looks (Veronika)<\/p>\n
The M65 US military field jacket<\/p>\n
o M65 produced by Alpha industries was first developed for US servicemen in 1965 and became a design classic
\no M65 were worn by angry veterans and fellow protesters.
\no M65 became reappropriated symbols, part of an authentic visual message, along with beards, long hair and peace badges –> became an iconic part of uniform of Hollywood hard men
\no M65 became popular in second-hand stores –> came with high price –> people were not buying the jacket itself, but were paying for the specialist and lucrative labor activities which have been sourcing, supplying and curating this commodity.
\no Imports have diverse affects within different societies
\nVintage fashion in cities<\/p>\n
o Affordable second-hand clothing could be used to produce individual and unique looks
\no Consumers attempt to attach themselves to the latest style or recreate a retro theme
\no Vintage fashion allows people to form an authentic style
\no There is a growing popularity of second-hand clothing in Italy. –> 3,500 stores can be found –> new way to form identity
\no Such stores as Topshop also sell second-hand clothing –> it is not just any pair of jeans that end up as an expensive vintage good. –> before it a highly specific type of labor activity is required. –> skilled buyers search for good garments and recognize which jeans represent cultural zeitqeist and can be positioned at the marketplace.
\no This type of work can create new value and wealth
\no Marx long ago observed ‘The surpolus labout of the mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of general wealth…’
\no Vintage clothing is not made at any single moment; it continually co-produced as the symbolic value is enhanced when it is marketed in different social contexts.
\no Nostalgia and heritage can be influential in shaping systems of provision –> powerful cultural force.
\no Symbolism is the livelihood of vintage fashion.
\no Socially, clothes have two meanings: keep you warm and symbolic value. –> vintage is about second one.<\/p>\n
Japanese jeans<\/p>\n
o In Tokyo and Osaka are the most exclusive and sought after pairs of jeans on the world –> expensive and carefully detailed. –> styles from 1950s
\no Large US Marine and Naval bases were established at Okinawa, Yokota. –> anti-american feelings were replaced by a yearning for American culture
\no jeans became popular, but were expensive –> could cost half a month’s salary –> second – hand jeans stores thrived
\no Denim aficionado Mikiharu Tsujita started his own brand – Fullcount. –> new techniques for treating, finishing and washing emerged. –> Japanese denim gradually established a reputation for innovation and quality.
\no Labor in Japan is also expensive, even compared to EU countries.
\no more than two thousand tons of vintage and contemporary American jeans are shipped annually to Japan.
\no This case study shows that it was not Levi Strauss, Lee or Wrangler that brought jeans to Japan –> instead creolized patterns of production and consumption dependent on specific socio – historic circumstances are thriving<\/p>\n
Used clothing markets in the global South<\/p>\n
o There are few indigenous Papua New Guinean businesses and no history of industrial clothing manufacturing.
\no Catholics and Lutherans are powerful economic and political actors
\no Used clothes are brought by Christian organization – Salvation Army –> able to source clothing from congregations and collection activities in the global North. –> mostly, from Melbourne and Sydney
\no Clothing has become an entrenched system of provision –> used clothes make up lion’s share of the apparel market
\no Even though the retail is carefully managed in warehouses, nevertheless, crime is rife
\no Many Papua New Guinea do not fully understand the connections between production, retail and the market due to their late and partial integration into the global capitalist society –> they believe that ‘cargo cults’ were coming from their ancestors
\no In one Highlands village men took to wearing flowing ladie’s floral dressing gowns, garments that became the way to show off
\no In Bolivia, imports of second-hand clothing are banned –> however, continue to flourish
\no The politics of the second-hand clothing trade are associated with the framing of the nation and a reassertion of gender roles and traditional identities –> informal second-hand clothing markets provides an opportunity for female economic empowerment
\no India has partially resisted the hegemonic model of economic liberalization promoted by the global North and has strategically integrated into the world economy, although the country has many of its own inequality. –> However, it facilitates Canam’s plant in Kandla that sorts and grades second hand clothing supplies from North America. Also, India a destination for recycling rags and clothing waste.
\no Pakistan is more economically open –> one of the largest importers of second-hand from Europe
\nChapter 9 (Mariam)
\npg. 207 \u2013 Tom\u2019s shoes
\n\u2022 Trend in footwear steadily spreading across USA.
\n\u2022 Toms shoes is an important new chapter in the so called annals of responsible capitalism.
\n\u2022 Toms model is symplicity itself : buy one , give one
\n\u2022 \u201c when you buy a pair of Tom\u2019s shoes, you\u2019re also helping improve the health, education and well being of a child.\u201d
\n\u2022 Blake Mycoskie\u2014socially responsible entrepreneur
\n\u2022 208
\n\u2022 featured in time magazine\u2019s \u201c how to fix capitalism\u201d authored by Gates
\n\u2022 People were not just buying shoes, but they were buying into an idea.
\n\u2022 The brand went beyond being an ethical business and has become a minor cultural movement.
\n\u2022 Stories and videos from the global South look like materials from an up-market Peace Corps campaign rather than corporate advertising.
\n\u2022 209
\n\u2022 Toms flags as if supporting a political party or a radical protest movement, rather than endorsing a shoe manufacturing company.
\n\u2022 Important critcisms of the \u2018one for one\u2019 model:
\n\u2022 A) First critique is about appropriateness of the donation
\n\u2022 Do shoes really satisfy a real need
\n\u2022 Maybe another item of clothing or cash or access to clean water would be more useful
\n\u2022 Poor are not consulted in the process
\n\u2022 They are cast as helpless and passive recipients of aid
\n\u2022 A lack of footwear does not stand out as the most pressing development issye facing the poor in the Global South.
\n\u2022 B) Second critique is about the systems of provision
\n\u2022 Adult Shoes in the US cost $48 to $140
\n\u2022 210
\n\u2022 They retail in Argentina for $5 including seller\u2019s profit
\n\u2022 $48 purchase of shoes represents a $5 donation max
\n\u2022 high number of volunteers who pay their own air fares and distribute these shoes in the Gobal south and come back and provide testimonials. Therefore becoming brand ambassadors.
\n\u2022 If the air fare was donated\u2014that would have been more effective aid.
\n\u2022 Thus, the whole system of provision is self financing and provides more good news stories for the Tom\u2019s website.
\n\u2022 C) Third critique is about the potential economic relationship of the \u201cbuy one, give one\u201d approach
\n\u2022 Free shoe drops can displace existing footwear matufacturing in the target countries
\n\u2022 Reduces local markets and makes it harder for industries which need protection to grow and compete
\n\u2022 211
\n\u2022 Brooks states that : Rather than providing products , people should be empowered to escape poverty and not become structurally dependent on handouts.
\n\u2022 Fostering solidarity between different groups can be a powerful force for social change.
\n\u2022 Brooks refers to \u201cone day without shoes\u201d initiative as slacktivism.
\n\u2022 Global North people are able to access information about pressing social issues around the world, but we are not inclined to disrupt our own lifestyles to take direct action to alleviate poverty or environmental degradation.
\n\u2022 This type of consumerism is arguably much about offsetting guilt as addressing poverty.
\n\u2022 212
\n\u2022 It is deeply problematic that the sale of a pair of espadrilles (shoes)should give someone the feeling that they are actually curing a problem or addresssing a socal issue when they are not. This is the fetishistic characteristic of so-called ethical consumption.
\n\u2022 D) Another critique is regarding the conditions of production
\n\u2022 Toms has addressed the critique of \u201ctrade not aid\u201d and makes most of its shoes in China and aims at creating jobs in Kenya, Haiti, Ethiopia, etc.
\n\u2022 Brooks states that addressing the exploitative relationships which exist between labour and capital at source offeres a more promising opportunity to mitigate some of the causes and consequences of uneven development.
\n\u2022 213
\n\u2022 Brooks states that none of these \u201cethical consumption\u201d initiatives addresses the embedded inequalities of the linkages between clothing consumption and production and is not the solution to uneven development.<\/p>\n
ETHICAL CONSUMPTION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE-213
\n\u2022 Americans and Europeans love to consume
\n\u2022 But uninterested in radical political change.
\n\u2022 Through mass media and cutural globalization, people are more conscious than ever about global inequalities and of issues like climate change.
\n\u2022 But despite all the awareness, widespread disenchantment with and indifference to conventional political porocesses are a hallmark of postmodern life.
\n\u2022 CAPITALISM in partnership with liberal governments, has been effective at forestalling political dissent and inventive in bringing new forms of cmmodity to the market.
\n\u2022 214
\n\u2022 Rather than engaging with formal political parties, progressive liberals are attracted to the fairly controllable and instantaneous consumption of new ethical products.
\n\u2022 Responsible capitalism has become a new means through which to promote environmental and social justice.
\n\u2022 Some clothing companies make ethics central to their businesses.
\n\u2022 EG: Pantagonia
\n\u2022 This type of consumption is distinguished by ethics, morality and the politics of responsibility, which motivate actions in a complex way.
\n\u2022 215
\n\u2022 There is a large gap between intention and behaviour; people readily identify themselves as ethically minded consumers yet rarely purchase ethical products.
\n\u2022 Radical approach to changing shopping habits: anti-consumption and boycott movements.
\n\u2022 EG: PETA
\n\u2022 What is interesting about a boycott is not the condemnation of market exchange per se but of a specific type of consumption.
\n\u2022 But temporary measure because explicit within the boycott principle is that consumption will resume once the conditions improve.
\n\u2022 Boycotts in line with the mainstream idea of commodity-choosing citizen consumers opting to take individual responsibility for social and environmental issues.
\n\u2022 Capitalist social relations are fundamentally ill-suited to resolving the problem of uneven development and environmental degradation fostered by the growth of free-market economies.
\n\u2022 Ethical consumption brings together morality and the market in what seems to be a contradiction in terms.
\n\u2022 IDEA OF COMMODITY FETISHISM
\n\u2022 Foundations of capitalism:goods and services \u2013purchased with money
\n\u2022 216
\n\u2022 money mediates relations between products and consumers
\n\u2022 therefore, creates a MORAL VACCUM
\n\u2022 inequalities in exchange concealed by apparently open and voluntary social relationships: you can buy jeans for $50 and worker can \u201cchoose\u201d to work 8-10 hours a day sewing and earn $1.80.
\n\u2022 different parties in the system of provision are unaware of the networks of exploitation and the various ways in which surplus value is extracted in the clothing trade.
\n\u2022 Commodity fetishism transforms the abstract and subjective value of a good and turns then into objective things that makes people belive that they have intrinsic economic value.
\n\u2022 It makes it easy to assign variable wages to different types of work.
\n\u2022 Ethically produced goods are an attempt to de-fetishize the commodity.
\n\u2022 EG: Fairtrade.
\n\u2022 Brooks states that Fairtrade consumption does little to disrupt the pre-existing relationships between capital, labour and nature.
\n\u2022 Liberal minded citizens in the Global North can indulge in their consumption habits without calling for large scale structural changes that could threaten their own privileged status in global society.
\n\u2022 217
\n\u2022 Value assigned to Fairtrade labour: covers only subsistence plus basic cost of health care and education.
\n\u2022 CAPITALIST SOCIAL relations are complicated; they include diverse cultural perceptions of value, but the salient point is that they are modified and not transformed by Fairtrade networks.<\/p>\n
3. VALUING FAIRTRADE CLOTHES
\n\u2022 the material culture that surrounds the consumption of fairtrade clothes is an integral part of the system of provision.
\n\u2022 Marx argued that shopping is stimulated by narratives and aesthetics.
\n\u2022 218
\n\u2022 Processes of image making in ethical consumption serve to reinforce and perpetuate economic relationships that undermine other more radical efforts to adress pressing social and environmental issues
\n\u2022 Premium pricing of most ethical garments excludes poorer consumers in the global north as well as the global south from choosing them. Brooks calls it the \u201cpetty-bourgeois indulgence\u201d.
\n\u2022 Therefore, serves as a means for making distinctions and class positioning.
\n\u2022 For capitalism, ethical systems of provision are an elegant solution to the challenges and criticisms raised by the allaince of trade unions, NGO\u2019s , faith groups, celebrities and others.
\n\u2022 Ethical trade offers a partial solution, whilst embedding the logic of inequality.
\n\u2022 Certain demands are addressed whilst at the same time the international inequality between classes is encouraged.
\n\u2022 Fairtrade good signifies \u201cethicalness\u201d. It partially acknowledges the inequity of market exhchange and the reality of capitalist accumulation but this system of provision depends upon the persistence of the market and ordinary practices of commodity exchange.
\n\u2022 219
\n\u2022 A voluntary premium is paid; yet, to maintain the price gap between conventional and fairtrade products,consumption has to be further stimulated through the creation of symbolic use values.
\n\u2022 This results in the production of consumable adverts and production vignettes which create a romantic and idealized vision of landscapes and livelihoods in the global south.<\/p>\n
4. VIVIENNE WESTWOOD AND POLITICAL CONSUMPTION-219
\n\u2022 Vivienne Westwood- influential british fashion designer.
\n\u2022 She is a campaigner on gender, social and environmental issues.
\n\u2022 Her fashion line: Made with love in Nairobi
\n\u2022 Her rebellious statement: \u201cDon\u2019t buy clothes\u201d
\n\u2022 This was an inauthentic message because she is the head of a very successful clothing label with a turnover in 2011 of 39.6 million.
\n\u2022 220
\n\u2022 Brooks: Her commodities are commodified art that have symbolic value among an affluent audience which is excited about her rebellious \u2018political\u2019 messages as well as the new fashionable designs.
\n\u2022 Her company, \u201cMade with love in Nairobi\u201d is collaborating with Internation Trade Centre (ITC) since 2010.
\n\u2022 ITC\u2019s \u2018Ethical Fashion Africa\u2019 initiative connects international fashion designers to African producers and organizes manufacturing activity, which enables some of the world\u2019s poorest people to enter fashion\u2019s value chain as producers, while also allowing designers, who want to source ethically, to do so.
\n\u2022 Westwood says that this intiatives gives people control over their lives.
\n\u2022 Brooks: Yet, the control over the system of provision is constrained when they are unable to design and market the goods.
\n\u2022 Africans do not have access to distant international customers who have the power to pick and choose , and thus decide whether or not they want to support a ethical cause.
\n\u2022 221
\n\u2022 3 problems with ITC\u2019s initiative is listed (but it is not very important)
\n\u2022 World Trade Organization sponsors ITC\u2019s \u201cEthical Fashion Africa\u201d initiative.
\n\u2022 Brooks: It is important to note that WTO\u2019s broad mission is to open up global trade, which is in line with the economic liberalization imposed on africa through structural adjustment programmes that contributed to eroding industries and decreasing wage levels.
\n\u2022 The reestablishment of an idustrial working class will be necessary before poverty reduction can be achieved on a large scale.<\/p>\n
5. Marketing Made with Love in Nairobi-222
\n\u2022 Westwood uses her celebrity identity to draw greater attention to the production location and shapes consumers\u2019 knowledge.
\n\u2022 Creation of commodity fetish begins with the name of the product. \u201cMade with Love in Nairobi\u201d
\n\u2022 The primary imagery used in Made with Love in Nairobi project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)s a powerful message of lifting impoverished African female workers out of poverty
\n\u2022 223
\n\u2022 Most of the photos taken as promotional material features the locals in the background while Vivienne takes centre stage.
\n\u2022 The promotional material also presents a one-way consumption of lide. The consumer can \u2018know\u2019 what life in Nairobi looks like, but this is uni-directional as the producer does not \u2018know\u2019 the consumer.
\n\u2022 Brooks: Some of the revenue from sales may help alleviate poverty in Kenya on a small scale, but meanwhile the promotional campaign creates new commodity fetishes that undermine the broader efforts to challenge the politics of global inequality.
\n\u2022 Rather than eliminating the commodity fetish, the celebrity artist conjures up a new performance.
\n\u2022 224
\n\u2022 \u2018Made with Love in Nairobi\u2019 offers limited acknowledgement of inequities at the heart of capitalism, but still depends upon the market and ordinary practices of commodity exchange.
\n\u2022 The proclaimed aim to move away from a charitable discourse is contradicted by images of Kenyans which fall into a category of deserving poor rather than equal partners.
\n\u2022 \u2018Made with Love in Nairobi\u2019 is itself a contradiction which undermines efforts to give greater recognition to worker in the Global South.<\/p>\n
6.ETHICAL RECYCLING AND NEW CYLES OF CONSUMPTION-224
\n\u2022 Consumer ethics play a role in how people in the Global North dispose off clothes.
\n\u2022 225
\n\u2022 The link between shopping and disposal is something that retailers are beginning to exploit as they mix fast fashion and sustainabiltity.
\n\u2022 Example: H&M \u2013(Donate clothes and get a voucher or 15% discount)
\n\u2022 These clothes are sold on to I:CO, a Swiss headquatered textile recycler, which processes used clothing for second hand markets in the Global south, vintage retail in the Global North, and recycling \u2013 just like the systems of provision.
\n\u2022 226
\n\u2022 Getting rid of old clothes makes more room for new consumption.
\n\u2022 Clothing retailers want to provide a virtuous outlet for unwanted clothing in the Global North, without interrupting the sale of fast fashion.
\n\u2022 227
\n\u2022 Ethical recycling provides an appealing and intuitive solution to the issues of overconsumption, yet this does not address the myriad development and environmental problems that are formed through the interconnected new and second-hand clothing systems of provision.
\n\u2022 Local rather than transnational commodity chains may offer Greener solutions
\n\u2022 Environmental impact of new clothing production need to be ore extensively explored
\n\u2022 Solutions are likely to require radical actions.<\/p>\n
7.Sustainable fashion-227
\n\u2022 Overall concept of sustainability rests upon three pillars: society, economy and environment.
\n\u2022 Within fashion:greatest attention has been drawn to the environmental pillar.
\n\u2022 228
\n\u2022 The politics of the evironment are malleable and business can shape the eco agenda to dictate new ways of bringing profitable clothing goods to the market.
\n\u2022 Fashions are the accellerating metronome for consumption, producing, advancing beats, pulsing ever faster to draw more commoditiies throught the cicuits of global systems of provision.
\n\u2022 229
\n\u2022 Fashion is a practice that directly underpins the rapid despoiling of the earth\u2019s environmental systems.
\n\u2022 Brooks says that Kate Fletcher recognizes the need for a holistic approach that looks across systems of provisions.
\n\u2022 Nothing important but can look at pg 30 for Fletcher\u2019s quote.<\/p>\n
8. PERSPECTIVES ON ETHICAL CONSUMPTION \u2013 230
\n\u2022 If capitalist progress is inherently good, then most enterprise will have ethical benefits. However, reality indicates otherwise.
\n\u2022 The global market economy has led to uneven development and environmental degradation.
\n\u2022 Ethical consumption is both compatible with and supportive of liberal free-market approaches to the governance of the global economy and environment.
\n\u2022 Fairtrade and related types of activity sustains the smooth functioning of global capitalism rather than being a brake on an exploitative mode of production.
\n\u2022 Ethical production systems alter rather than eliminate the exploitation of labour and nature, especially in the Global South.
\n\u2022 231
\n\u2022 The maintenance of individual consumer sovereignity fits perfectly with extreme notions of liberalism whereby social relations are becoming \u2018purely atomic\u2019 and civic resposibility is rejected in favour of the ‘apotheosis of the individual\u2019. This type of positional ethical consumption as class differentiation feeds ito the reproduction of inequalities.
\n\u2022 From an environmental perspective the individually responsible decision is to choose to shop less often, wear clothes until they are worn out, and then repair or recycle them within the household or replace them with locally produced goods.
\n\u2022 Slowing the rate of clothing consumption by buying fewer higher-quality clothes is a far more environmentally friendly approach than consuming to buy fast fashion and donating excess clothes.
\n\u2022 232
\n\u2022 However, these solutions are an \u2018opt in\u2019 approach to a massive problem and are unlikely to be taken upp by more than a small section of society in the Global North who have the direct opportunity ro make the decision.
\n\u2022 More radical social change is required, to which the capitalist mode of production does not provide the answer.
\nChapter 10: Fast-fashion systems (Mariam)
\n\u2022 pg 233
\n\u2022 London fashion week
\n\u2022 held in Somerset House
\n\u2022 Pg 234
\n\u2022 Design students take photos of new looks, promotional models hand out flyers
\n\u2022 \u201ccatwalk shows are pure theatre\u201d
\n\u2022 new looks will soon make it to clothing stores across the GN (Global North)
\n\u2022 new trends worn are reported in the printed press and relayed online around the world \u2013 rated and debated \u2013 inspiration for new mass clothing production
\n\u2022 clothing culture is influenced by wider processes and reflects social change
\n\u2022 ^ shows globalization
\n\u2022 pg 235
\n\u2022 fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening \u2013 Chanel
\n\u2022 material culture in fashion shows help generate retail demand and determine what is on sale in malls
\n\u2022 consumers have less autonomy, demand is stimulated, clothing needs to meet a consumer niche but manipulated by fashion sector
\n\u2022 new demands are propelled by the media
\n\u2022 cultural values influence how fashions are perceived
\n\u2022 for GN = symbolic value of clothing is just part of their decision making process when they go shopping
\n\u2022 trends are never static, but kept in motion
\n\u2022 pg 236
\n\u2022 growth in demand for consumer products is essential for capitalism
\n\u2022 used clothing is regularly disposed of in the GN = new clothing principally for the sake of appearance
\n\u2022 no easy answers to reconciling the relationships b\/w the production of clothing and the persistence of poverty
\n\u2022 radical alternatives modify capitalist social relations
\n\u2022 little progress towards substantive political transformation on the horizon
\n\u2022 making markets for second-hand clothes
\n\u2022 for the poor = availability of clothes is a welfare issue
\n\u2022 pg 237
\n\u2022 GS of today should not be confused with pre-industrial world, marginalized by capitalist class relations, ppl struggle to find employment = act as surplus reserve of labour, can be exploited when investment seeks out new territory
\n\u2022 Uneven development of capitalism = great wealth to some through patterns of exploitation
\n\u2022 Complicated geography to wealth and poverty
\n\u2022 GDF growth in Africa and BRICS has occurred alongside rising inequality
\n\u2022 Poor countries = e.g. in south Africa, local elites shop for designer clothes in malls, poor buy low cost clothing in value retail stores in declining urban centres. Sometimes for illegally imported second hand clothing sold by Nigerians.
\n\u2022 Pg 238
\n\u2022 Garments cheaper for rich consumers cuz = declining terms of trade, more protection and liberalization
\n\u2022 Exploitation of labour
\n\u2022 Capitalism is inherently expansionist, drives excessive consumption, surplus of unwanted clothes, export BACK to GS, sometimes SAME LOCATIONS that manufacture new clothes for export.
\n\u2022 The circulation of both new and used clothes locks poor societies into relationships od dependency
\n\u2022 Neoliberal policies and SAPs (structural adjustment policies) = undermine local clothing production, promote imports.
\n\u2022 Northern styles of dress are forged through mass media and returning migrants
\n\u2022 New imported garments come primarily from china in Africa (low quality) = different than the ones made FOR America and Europe (better)
\n\u2022 Pg 239
\n\u2022 ^ that\u2019s why Africans prefer buying second-hand garments
\n\u2022 used clothing traders accumulate surplus value from past labour and new labour activities
\n\u2022 time lag of several yrs b\/w emergence of new trends and arrival of those used clothes in African markets = why Africa cannot keep up with trends
\n\u2022 pg 240
\n\u2022 Africans have diverse taste but do not buy fast fashion like americans
\n\u2022 Local or int\u2019l styles influence purchases, but are a secondary consideration = for African countries
\n\u2022 In Africa, fashion conscious purchases are the exception rather than the norm.
\n\u2022 Middle class = afford int\u2019l prices, choose to consume clothes primarily for fashion value.
\n\u2022 Concept of buying the best second hand clothes
\n\u2022 Problems identified with the second hand clothing trade = regulation of the collection and donation sectors in GN to address malpractice, raising awareness to ppl that their second hand clothes r beneficial, protectionist\/industrialization policies could promote local clothing industries.
\n\u2022 Pg 241
\n\u2022 Controls on imports = reversal of economic liberalization programmes
\n\u2022 Protection to clothing industries in Africa, type of biz fostered = those that pay living wages and not salaries, which barely sustain life.
\n\u2022 Environmentally responsible agriculture and manufacturing should be encouraged
\n\u2022 Post-consumption
\n\u2022 Capitalist development spawned the exploitative fast fashion system, and int\u2019l ineq.
\n\u2022 Late capitalism: individualism is promoted relentelessly
\n\u2022 Choosing to consume ethically: not leading to widespread progressive change
\n\u2022 Consumer in GN AND GS cannot be trusted to consistently make good decisions \u2013 justified by 4 interconnected levels
\n\u2022 Pg 242
\n1. Unrealistic to expect consumers in GN to undertake ethical audit whenever they go to buy new clothes. Relationship b\/w labour, owner of means of production, and consumer. Complexity of supply chains. Finding an ethical way to get rid of used clothing is just as problematic as trying to shop responsibly. Ppl\u2019s good intentions offer a limited solution to solving fast fashion consumption
\n2. Shoppers cannot be trusted to shop less or consumer differently. Rate of consumption needs to be slowed down to mitigate the env\u2019t impacts of fast fashion. Sustainable fashion mvmts. Transforming behaviours and slowing consumption go against capitalist social relations.
\n\u2022 Pg 243
\n3. difficult to do right thing \u2013 for both individual and biz\/states. US buys clothing from overseas suppliers that breaks local laws, contravening own responsible sourcing.
\n4. Individual buying power is weak. Vast majority of world\u2019s consumers r poor ppl in GS. Do u make a cost benefit analysis when buying clothes
\n\u2022 Post consumption approach to social relations
\n\u2022 Pg 244
\n\u2022 Alternative ways to think about the relationships b\/w consumers and producers (two)
\n1. De-fetishizing the market. Research on labour exploitation and ethical initiatives. Post-consumption school would promote radical advocacy and bring awareness of social justice to a popular audience.
\n\u2022 pg 245
\n2. Political change. Remote cuz of financial instability, common responsibility, shared intimacy, diverse people, possibilities to shop less\/shop differently\/shop reflectively. Regulation and legal protection required for production of clothing in socially responsible ways.
\n\u2022 Pg 246
\n\u2022 Can production be fixed
\n\u2022 Need a more equitable distribution of the fruits of clothing prod.
\n\u2022 Workers living under the poverty line make clothing, those who own r multi billionaires. Their personal wealth far exceeds the annual GDP of entire countries.
\n\u2022 Capitalism = uneven distribution of growth (this whole chapter repeats that)
\n\u2022 Bargaining for increased wages through labour unionization.
\n\u2022 Independent TU (trade unions) r repressed ruthlessly
\n\u2022 Unionization can help improve conditions
\n\u2022 Minority of permanent employees able to join unions
\n\u2022 Weakened bonds b\/w workers = could not unite effectively to oppose oppressive mgmt. regimes
\n\u2022 Pg 247
\n\u2022 y bargaining is ineffecive = Deskilling of labour in textile n clothing ind\/use of advanced technologies = degradation of work n alienation of predominantly female workers, surplus supply of labour, political conditions.
\n\u2022 Fast fashion factories relocate to new lower wage locations when cost of labour increases \u2013 in response to union demands, competition for employees, other social pressures.
\n\u2022 Unity of labour is ultimately required, bargain for a reduction in exploitation on a global scale
\n\u2022 Realistic appraisal
\n\u2022 Pg 248
\n\u2022 Different approach = regulating the market and raising min wages in GS to close the gap with those in GN
\n\u2022 Difference in wages in the GN vs GS
\n\u2022 Improving wages = better human development
\n\u2022 Cost difference passed on to the consumer
\n\u2022 Increasing trade liberalization is promoted by powerful organizations like WTO
\n\u2022 Pg 249
\n\u2022 Crisis prone nature of capitalism = deep recession
\n\u2022 Radical transformation in terms of wages paid to labour is unlikely to occur under capitalism
\n\u2022 A state\u2019s jobs = improve industrial standards, workforce highly educated, access to good health care
\n\u2022 Some factories, digital read outs linked how many garments individual workers have completed
\n\u2022 Pg 250
\n\u2022 ^ think this is +ve devpt, a potential mgmt tool
\n\u2022 but if rate of profit falls: monitor individual rates of work, set high targets, think employees work harder = not true
\n\u2022 labour exploitation = those who stitch garments remain poor, surplus values extracted by owners of factories
\n\u2022 exploiation will persist. Workers need to own their own means of production.
\n\u2022 CONCLUSION OF WHOLE BOOK
\n\u2022 Book talks about jeans in Mozambican market, world\u2019s hidden clothing systems of provision
\n\u2022 Pg 251
\n\u2022 North buys fast fashion, lacking opportunities for world\u2019s poor.
\n\u2022 Rich consumers enjoy a great range of clothes \u2013 world\u2019s poor dependent on second hang clothing imports
\n\u2022 Systems-of-provision approach: patterns of clothing consumption both respond to and influence the process of uneven economic development
\n\u2022 Consumer demand essential in sustaining economic growth
\n\u2022 Clothing systems of provision are shaped by producers, who stimulate consumer demand
\n\u2022 Overconsumption: -ve envt and social impacts
\n\u2022 ^effects = circulation of used clothing
\n\u2022 second hand clothing only exists cuz capitalism is wrong
\n\u2022 the market pushes toward the devpt of technologically impressive production systems, but still failing to meet basic needs of a vast proportion of society
\n\u2022 spatial ineq due to globalization
\n\u2022 capitalism leads to destructive warfare, dAssessment\/resolution of absolute crisis. Violence.
\n\u2022 Capitalism may mould some envts, while choking others.
\n\u2022 Pg 252
\n\u2022 Lived experience of poverty = reality.
\n\u2022 Exploitation faced by employees, struggles to provide for families, ecological crisis, human-induced envt change
\n\u2022 Rich = no real political appetite for transformation that could disrupt everyday life
\n\u2022 Change will not happen under capitalism. Impoverishment and ineq will not die, but expressed in new ways.
\n\u2022 Accumulation of profit from surplus labour of others = social diff = wider gap b\/w rich n poor.
\n\u2022 Spatial fix for capital drags different territories into crisis
\n\u2022 Solutions proposed by Economic globalization problems r also distant
\n\u2022 HOPE = build momentum through action, activism, and critical research<\/p>\n
Chapter 9: (Azayah)
\nToms Shoes<\/p>\n
\u2022 Toms success story= \u201dso called responsible capitalism\u201dpg.207
\n\u2022 But this example of social entrepreneurship=contradiction of ethical consumption
\n\u2022 Model: buy one, give one (to a child in a developing country\u2026\u201dimproving health, education, well-being of a child\u201d
\n\u2022 Encourages consumers to buy into an idea (ie that they are preforming an ethical act)
\n\u2022 Toms acts like an advocacy NGO ie one day without shoes eventbring awareness to children in the global south without shoes while endorsing their shoe manufacturing company
\n\u2022 Backlash of the one for one model(as a solution)
\n\u2022 1) appropriateness of the donation (fails to address a real need\u2014more pressing issues)
\n\u2022 Poor are not consulted in process and viewed as helpless, passive recipients of aid
\n\u2022 2) System of provisionToms shoes sell for between $48-140 in the USA while the cost of manufacturing in Argentina is $5 (could alternatively extract surplus from these sales while maintaining the donation system)
\n\u2022 cost of distributing shoes in global south is borne out by the Toms community (ie volunteers pay for flights to become brand ambassadors)
\n\u2022 cost of flights would be more effective aid if the ticket prices were donated and directed toward employing local people to distribute the donations (current system of provision is self-financing and provides good new stories for Toms)
\n\u2022 as with cheap imports of second hand clothing, free shoe drops can displace existing footwear manufacturing in the target countries, reducing local markets and making it harder for industries which need protection to grow and compete
\n\u2022 one for one endeavor also problematic because rather than band aid solutions it is better to ask deeper questions about the the global economy
\n\u2022 rather than providing products, people should be empowered to escape poverty and not become structurally dependent on handouts
\n\u2022 one day without shoes imitative=slacktivismable to access info about social inequity but unwilling to take direct action to alleviate poverty or environmental degradation
\n\u2022 Fetishistic characteristic of ethical consumption=people want to link themselves to the ideas of poverty alleviation and charitygiving the idea to people that they are actually curing a problem or addressing a social issue when they are not
\n\u2022 212 Additional Critiqueconditions of productionbetter to think of conditons of workers and ensure an ethical supply chain ie trade not aid
\n\u2022 ^working toward improvements, currently most shoes made in China, but have plans to produce one third-in countries where they make donations by end of 2015
\n\u2022 addressing exploitative relationships that exits between labour and capital at source offers a more promising opportunity to mitigate some of the causes and consequences of uneven development
\n\u2022 basic question:should first world consumers be determining what footwear others in the global South access Conventional fashion system of provision to a parallel supply system directed towards the deserving poordoes not address the embedded inequalities of the linkages between clothing consumption and production and is not the solution to uneven development<\/p>\n
Ethical Consumption in Theory and Practice Pg. 213
\n\u2022 consumer culture in North America and Europe + uninterested in radical political change
\n\u2022 Despite increasing awareness of developmental and environmental problems, widespread disenchantment with and indifference to conventional political processes are a hallmark of post-modern life
\n\u2022 Capitalism in partnership with liberal governments, has been effective at forestalling political dissent and inventive at bringing new forms of commodity to the market
\n\u2022 Citizens define primarily as commodity chasing consumers
\n\u2022 Responsible capitalism (new politicized way consumer can exercise choice) responsible capitalism has become a new means thru which to promote environmental and social justice
\n\u2022 Shopping for \u201cgood\u201d goods mediates our engagement with an expanding range of economic, environmental, and social topic (sample nursing essay examples by the best nursing assignment writing service)s (ethical clothes=demonstrating solidarity with good causes)
\n\u2022 Some clothing makes ethics central to their business ie Patagonia, an American outdoor appeal companypromotes fair labour practices, uses recycled and organic products
\n\u2022 Self serving connection evident in the Patagonia system of provision
\n\u2022 Buying ethically can help protect the environment and consumer can enjoy envrt when wearing clothes and hiking etc
\n\u2022 This type of consumption is distinguished by ethics, morality and the politics of responsibly which motivate actions in a complex way
\n\u2022 Large gap between intention and behaviour: people readily identify themselves as ethically minded consumers yet rarely purchase ethical products
\n\u2022 More radical approach to changing shopping habits=anti-consumption and boycott movements
\n\u2022 Anti-consumption=PEETA (id rather go naked than wear fur) photo shoots
\n\u2022 Boycotts=temporary suspension of consumption, not a condemnation of market exchange per se but of a specific type of consumption (in line with the mainstream idea of commodity-choosing citizen consumers opting to take individual responsibility for social end environmental issues
\n\u2022 Capitalist social relations are fundamentally ill-suited to resolving the problems of uneven development and environmental degradation fostered by the growth of free market economies
\n\u2022 Ethical consumption brings together the market and morality in what seems to be a contradiction in terms
\n\u2022 Inequalities in exchange are concealed by apparently open and voluntary social relationships
\n\u2022 Different parties in the system of provision are unaware of the networks of exploitation and the various way sin which surplus value is extracted in the clothing trade
\n\u2022 Commodity fetishism transforms the abstract and subjective value of Gap jeans, vintage dresses, Toms or any clothing item turning them into objective things which people believe have intrinsic economic valuetrue of any commodity including human labour
\n\u2022 Throughout the clothing systems of provision different subjective values are assigned to various types of labour, which are exploited to a greater or lesser extent
\n\u2022 Ethically produced goods are an attempt to de-fetishize the commodity fair trade
\n\u2022 Buying Fairtrade may be intended by the consumers to be an individual progressive political act, but does little to disrupt the pre-existing relationships between capital, labour and nature
\n\u2022 Liberal minded citizens in the global North can indulge in their consumption habits without calling for the large-scale structural changes that could threaten their own privileged status in global society
\n\u2022 Fair trade aims to modify market relations by providing a just price for third world labour but does not even produce the appearance of equality
\n\u2022 Value assigned to Fairtrade labour is a small premium above the market rate, but covers only subsistence
\n\u2022 Capitalist social relations are modified not transformed by Fairtrade networks
\nValuing Fairtrade clothes
\n\u2022 Shopping for clothes in the global north=buying into a lifestyle
\n\u2022 Material culture that surrounds the consumption of Fairtrade garments is an integral part of the system
\n\u2022 Links between spaces of production and places of consumption in Fairtrade networks are exposed through adverts, documentaries and packaging which lead to the reworking and creation of new spectacles for consumption
\n\u2022 So much of what determines the subjective symbolic value in clothing is the spectacular activities that lie beyond the narrow realm of physical production (place influential in establishing value) ie adverts of production which include visiting happy workers in tropical landscapes=reinforces and perpetuates economic relationships that undermine other more radical efforts to address pressing social and envrt\u2019al issues
\n\u2022 Fairtrade=limited progress and change=partial solution which crowd out more radical political possibilities\/alternatives
\n\u2022 FT=small scale\/molecular social transformation as a tepid revolution in shopping without a revolution in societycertain demands are addressed while internal inequality between classes is encouraged
\n\u2022 Contradiction within fair trade=whilst partially acknowledging the inequality within Fairtrade and the reality of capitalist accumulation, this system of provision depends upon the persistence of the market and ordinary practices of commodity exchange
\n\u2022 A voluntary premium is paid, yet to maintain the price gap between conventional and Fairtrade products, consumption has to be further stimulated through the creation of symbolic use values
\n\u2022 This results in the production of consumable adverts and producer vignettes which create a romantic and idealized vision of landscapes and livelihoods in the global South
\nVivienne Westwood and political consumption
\n\u2022 Example of the performance of ethicalness=Vivienne Westwood(British fashion designer)\u2019s Made with Love in Nairobi
\n\u2022 Her brand helps inspire the fast-fashion system of provision, as her designer labels drives forward new clothing trends, which migrate rapidly from the the catwalk to shopping malls
\n\u2022 Her commodities=art and have symbolic value among an affluent audience which is excited by her rebellious political messages as well as the new fashionable designs
\n\u2022 Westwood\u2019s made with Love in Nairobi has been produced in collaboration with the International Trade Center (ITC) since 2010
\n\u2022 ITC ethical protocol model aims to reduce poverty by generating \u201ctrade opportunities for marginalized communities and micro-producers in the developing world\u201d and enables \u201cinternational fashion companies and distributors to source from African communities by following a \u201crigorous code of ethics and gender equality\u201d designed to empower women and raise their incomes.\u201dlike Fairtrade model is not charity just work
\n\u2022 Ethical Fashion Africa initiative connects international fashion designers to African producers and organizes manufacturing activity, which enables some of the world\u2019s poorest people to enter fashion\u2019s value chain as producers while also allowing designers who want to source ethically to do so
\n\u2022 Kenya, working conditions meet Fair Labour Association criteria, as a consequence of which craftswomen\u2019s income increased from 3 to 6 dollars a day (similar to Fairtrade in the ITC program, wages include a small premium above the market rate but do enable much more than the physical reproduction of labour power
\n\u2022 Control over the system of provision is constrained when Africa women are unable to design and market the goods
\n\u2022 Africans do not have access to distant international customers who chose whether or not to support an ethical cause
\n\u2022 Through the ITC a new model of development is being promoted as a way to fuel African economic growth, but this is unlikely to lead to widespread poverty alleviation
\n\u2022 Three main problems with the economic geography of this type of intervention
\n\u2022 1) Rather than establishing \u201cmodern\u201d industrial patterns (as previously existed in Kenya and elsewhere in AfricaITC advocates a fragmented approach to organizing production and \u201cessentially spreads out the different parts of a factory over entire regions\u201d
\n\u2022 This promotes uneven development and amplifies spatial inequality by Helping only certain groups to enter the global capitalist economy on marginally better terms
\n\u2022 2) Dispersed community-level production is also disadvantageous for labour as it reduces wage earner\u2019s bargaining power relative to international buying firms
\n\u2022 3)ITC wants to develop large scale production, but does not promote state intervention, preferential access to overseas markets, industrial development, or production for local consumers and only responds to \u201cmarket demand\u201d
\n\u2022 The WTO sponsors ITC\u2019s ethical Fashion Africa initiative
\n\u2022 WTO\u2019s broad mission is to open up global trade, which is in line with economic liberalization imposed upon Africa through the structural adjustment programs that contributed to eroding industries and decreasing wage levels
\n\u2022 \u201cMade in love with Nairobi\u201d =niche production and small scale employment that cannot contribute to widespread poverty alleviation; rather than well-intentioned market \u201csolutions\u201d, more radical shifts in the mode of production are required
\n\u2022 the reestablishment of an industrial working class will be necessary before poverty reduction can be achieved on a large scale
\nMarketing \u201cMade with Love in Nairobi\u201d
\n\u2022 \u201cMade with Love in Nairobi\u201dmarketing obscures the unequal relationship between consumer and producername says more about the consumers\u2019 construction of their own identity than about the producers\u2019 situation
\n\u2022 imagery of the adverts follows classical European representations of the continent, where Africans are reduced to the role of bystanders
\n\u2022 The marketing activity contrasts sharply with the livelihoods of African market traders, which are beset by risk, uncertainty, and hardships
\n\u2022 Some of the revenue from sales may help alleviate poverty in Kenya on a small scale, but meanwhile the promotional campaign creates new commodity fetishes that undermine the broader efforts to challenge the politics of global inequity
\n\u2022 Westwood\u2019s stylized and romantic vison of Kenya is obscuring the inequity between global North and South in a manner comparable to that of other celebrities\u2019 interventions in Africa
\n\u2022 Like Fairtrade and other ITC products, \u201cmade with love in Nairobi\u201d offers limited acknowledgement of the inequities at the heart of capitalism, but still depends upon the market and ordinary practices of commodity exchange
\n\u2022 A voluntary premium is paid to the Kenyan labour force, but to sustain the consumption of this product the commodity-choosing consumers have to be stimulated to buy the good through the creation of material and symbolic use values which grab their attention and command high prices
\n\u2022 The aim to move away form a charitable discourse is contradicted by the images of Kenyans\u2019 which fall into the category of deserving poor rather than equal partners
\n\u2022 Westwood wants the consumer to help poor Africans instead of proving something different to charity, Made with Love in Nairobi is itself a contradiction which undermines efforts to give greater recognition to workers in the global South
\nEthical recycling and new cycles of consumption
\n\u2022 People increasingly being directed towards ways of disposing of the masses of old, unwanted clothes that result form the global North\u2019s overconsumptionincludes the growth in doorstep and clothing bank and commercial solutions
\n\u2022 Retailers beginning to exploit link between shopping and disposal (by mixing fast fashion and sustainability)
\n\u2022 Ie H&M Garment Collection SchemeChange mindset of consumers to see old clothes as a resource (voucher in return for old clothes)
\n\u2022 Clothes are sold on to I:CO a Swiss headquartered textile recycler, which processes used clothing for second hand markets in the global south, and recycling
\n\u2022 Claimnon profit making venture, donations made, for each kilo of clothes that H&M collects 0.02 Euros donated to local charities
\n\u2022 Getting rid of clothes makes room for new consumption, provide a virtuous outlet for unwanted clothing in the global North, without interrupting the sale of fast fashion
\n\u2022 Marketing materials downplay the broader social and economic impacts of the second hand clothing system of provision in the global South
\n\u2022 Ethical consumption does not address the development and environmental problems that are formed thru the interconnected new and second-hand clothing systems of provision
\n\u2022 Second hand clothing donations have diverse effects upon the economies and cultures of the global southlocal rather than transitional commodity chains may offer Greener solutions
\nSustainable Fashion
\n\u2022 Sustainable, Green\/Eco Fashionpart of wider trend towards sustainable forms of consumption
\n\u2022 ^rethinking the relationship between design, consumption, use and reuse, and end of life
\n\u2022 major fashion companies made limited efforts to think progressively about material selection, resource flows and supply chain efficiencies
\n\u2022 but contradiction in sustainable fashionnormal of fast fashion is driven by the logic of the market, latest fashion implies that clothes become outdated and accelerates more consumption
\n\u2022 fashion is the practice that directly underpins the rapid despoiling of the Earth\u2019s environmental systems
\n\u2022 under capitalism, the necessity to continually increase profits brings more products to the market
\n\u2022 industrial capitalism is exceeding planetary boundaries creating irreversible destruction
\n\u2022 how can fashion become sustainable viable alternatives must be located, studied and popularized to unlock creativity and challenge contemporary relationships between people and the garment sector
\nPerspectives on Ethical Consumption
\n\u2022 Ethical production systems alter rather than eliminate the exploitation of labour and nature, especially in the global South
\n\u2022 Ethical consumption=the satisfaction of individuals needs=\u201da necessary means to keep the machinery of capitalist reproduction going\u201d
\n\u2022 Buying ethical clothes like Toms shoes is an individualized form of political consumption which represents a limited force for social change that focuses attention only on convenient ethical topic (sample nursing essay examples by the best nursing assignment writing service)s
\n\u2022 From an envrt perspective the individually responsible decision is to choose to shop less often, wear clothes until they are worn out, and then repair or recycle them within the household or replace them with locally produced goods
\n\u2022 Slowing the rate of clothing consumption by buying fewer higher-quality clothes is a friendlier environmental approach than continuing to buy fast fashion and donate excess clothes
\n\u2022 However, these solutions are an opt in approach to a massive problem and are unlikely to be taken up by more than a small section society in the global north
\n\u2022 A more radical social change is required to which the capitalist mode of production does not provide the answer<\/p>\n
Chapter 10: Fast Fashion Systems (Azayah)
\nLondon Fashion Week
\n\u2022 The types of couture collections that are exhibited at Somerset House, as well as the material culture that surrounds London Fashion Week, feed into new clothing systems of provision, helping to generate retail demand and determine what is on sale in malls and department stores
\n\u2022 Consumers have less autonomy in affected demand than imagineddemand stimulated by fashion sector
\n\u2022 Changing meanings are attributed to clothing and behaviour norms and cultural values influence how fashion is perceivedpeople are compelled to buy to adhere to trends
\n\u2022 Fast fashion retail is linked to the sale of second hand clothing (people by clothes they don\u2019t need because they like the way they look and get rid of clothes they can still wear but which they no longer like)
\n\u2022 Inequality is produced thru different patterns of commodity exchange
\n\u2022 Radical alternatives are needed to deliver fundamental social change
\nMaking Markets for second hand clothes
\n\u2022 Global division in consumption
\n\u2022 Uneven development of capitalism has delivered wealth to some thru patterns of exploitation (in cotton growing, textile manufacturing and garment production) and left much of the world impoverished)
\n\u2022 The world is split between affluent North and poor South
\n\u2022 Lives in global south marginalized because of capitalist class relations
\n\u2022 Poorer hemispherehundreds of millions of people struggle to find employment and act as a surplus reserve of labour who can be exploited when investment seeks out new territory to provide a spatial fix
\n\u2022 Complicated geography to wealth and povertypatterns are changingrecent growth in Africa and BRICS occurred alongside rising inequality
\n\u2022 Within countries, there exist sharp divisions between rich and poor
\n\u2022 From colonial period onwards, declining terms of trade and strategic approaches to market protection and liberalization have made garments cheaper for rich countries
\n\u2022 Neoliberal policies and SAPS have undermined local clothing production and promoted imports helping to create captive markets
\n\u2022 In the global south many poor consumers are not served by systems of provision that bring well made or desirable clothing to the market (ie china flooding African market with low quality goods)
\n\u2022 In the medium term solutions to problems of second hand clothing trade:
\n\u2022 Regulation of the collection and donation sectors in the global North to address malpractice, such as the theft of donations
\n\u2022 Raising awareness among consumers of fast fashion clothing of the future trajectories of their donated second hand clothes
\n\u2022 In global Southimport regulations could control the market for second hand clothes and if parallel protectionist measure and industrialization policies were implemented, could promote local clothing industries
\nPost Consumption
\n\u2022 Individual adjustments to behaviour, choosing to consume ethically, are not leading to widespread progressive change\u2026because.
\n\u2022 1) unrealistic to expect consumers in the global north to be able to undertake an accurate ethical audit whenever they go and buy new clothes
\n\u2022 2)Shoppers cannot be trusted to shop less or consume differently (transforming behaviours and slowing the market go against capitalist social relations, which depend upon the continual expansion of the market)
\n\u2022 3)Difficult for business and state to do the right thing in the market
\n\u2022 4) Although their individual buying power is weak, the vast majority of the world\u2019s consumers are poor people in the global south (cannot afford to take into account ethics)
\n\u2022 consumption=poor route to fixing challenges at hand therefore post consumption is necessary=an alternative way to think about the relationship between consumers and producers includes political change and defetishizing the market
\n\u2022 Political chang: getting behind the veil of market exchange, thru rigorous exposes about labour exploitationto promote radical advocacy and bring awareness of social justice to a popular audience
\n\u2022 Evidence would inform spirited debate that result in political actionsocial justice organizations support the fight for improved workers rights
\n\u2022 Possibilities to shop less, differently and reflectively more likely to come about by formal political action, on local national, and international levels
\n\u2022 Stricter regulation and legal protection are required to enforce the production of clothing in socially and environmentally responsible ways
\nCan production be fixed
\n\u2022 In addition to poverty, there are further factors that weaken the power of workers int the global south
\n\u2022 Ie deskilling of workers in textile and garment industries and the use of advanced technologies (power in hands of management)
\n\u2022 Mobile nature of fast fashion factories means that production can pick up and move to lower wage locations
\n\u2022 The unity of labour across different scales (Factories, regions, nations, and worldwide) is ultimately required
\n\u2022 Union power can help highlight local injustice and leverage political change will stalling the push to suppress wages
\n\u2022 Utopian approachregulation the market and raising minimum wages in the global south to close the gap with those in the global North (unlikely to ever occur in capitalism)
\n\u2022 For as long as capitalism continues, the only way to begin to address the unequal relationships of exchange is for clothing workers to own their own means of production
\nConclusion
\n\u2022 On a global scale, there is a connection between the rapid rate at which people in the North buy fast fashion and the lack of opportunities for clothing consumption on the part of many of the world\u2019s poor
\n\u2022 Fast fashion drives down the price of clothing goods
\n\u2022 Rich consumers enjoy a great range of clothes, but are complicit in the process that locks the world\u2019s poor in Africa, Asia, And LA into a partial dependency on second hand clothes
\n\u2022 Under capitalism impoverishment and inequality will not die, they will learn new ways of expressing themselves
\nHope lies only in the building of momentum thru action, activism and critical research