GEO Module 2

Question 1

Fast Fashion

Answer 1

Readily available, inexpensive clothing, how fast they become unfashionable, speed & quantity of clothing produced & disposed by consumers.

Question 2

Conversion Rate

Answer 2

Viewer’s rate/probability of purchase (ex. x10 live shopping)

Question 3

Commodity Fetishism

Answer 3

Exchange value obscuring social, political & environmental relationships & conditions during production, confusing commodities for being simply things or objects (fetishisms them), they are presented as though they are natural and without history.

Commodities appear as independent and apart from the social and environmental relationships that produce them

Question 4

Social Relations

Answer 4

Labor conditions, standards (from production to retail)
- The garment industry is one of the biggest and most labour intensive industries, with an estimated of 25-60 million people employed

Wages in comparison to cost of living
- 90% of workers in the global garment industry have no possibility to negotiate their wages and conditions

How much profit is generated & where it flows & to whom

Government policies (e.g. trade agreements, subsidies)

Question 5

Environmental Relations

Answer 5

Water use
- Daily discharge of printing and dyeing wastewater is 600,000 tons
- Daily discharge of printing and dyeing wastewater is 600,000 tons
- One kg of cotton (= weight of a shirt and a pair of jeans) can take as much as 10,000-20,000 liters of water to produce (1)

Pollution
- As much as 20-35% of all primary source microplastics in the marine environment are from synthetic clothing

Resource Extraction:
- Textile manufacturing consumes 98 million tons of nonrenewable resources—from oil that goes into synthetic fibers to fertilizers to grow cotton, and 93 billion cubic meters of water annually

Greenhouse gas emissions
- 4-8% of the world’s total carbon footprint is from fashion. France, Germany, and UK combined 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.

Garbage production
- Nearly 60% of all clothing ends up in incinerators or landfills within a year of being produced. That’s one garbage truck per second!

Question 6

Proximate Causes/Issues

Answer 6

Overabundance & cheapness of a commodity, opposite to the underproduction & high cost housing module.

Question 7

Structural Drivers + Researchers

Answer 7

A perspective opens & closes avenues.

1. Consumer’s unending demand - Upton-Clark
2. Globalized supply chains, hard to trace, complicated - Holdcraft+Skinner & Muhammad & Kent & Dr.Jamie Peck
3. Lack of government regulator oversight - Bedat
4. Colonialism & patriarchy - Barenblat+Mayer & Dr.Gerry Pratt
5. Economic System/Capitalism & Neoliberal Discourse - Sullivan+Hickel & Marx & Pham

Question 8

History of Garment Sector

Answer 8

Global shift towards outsourced production & materials along long complex supply chains in Global South for the Global North.

Ex. Levi’s Producer –> Brand
- 1960s: 98%-2% of clothes purchased in US produced domestically

• 2000s, clothing prices fell by 26.2% in Europe & 17.1% in the US
• 200-2007 exports of clothes from China to US increased by 18% per year, 21% in Europe

Brands & suppliers have no awareness of each other, production origins are obscured by brands, leading to retailers that can pass on responsibility for labor exploitation down the supply chain with no accountability (Mark Sumner)
- Making it difficult to enact ethical decisions in regards to clothes as no one knows how, where & who produced them

Question 9

Anu Muhammad

Answer 9

The worker’s conditions.

1. RMG (ready made garment) sector exploded in Bangladesh in the 1980s
   - No spinning, putting clothes together
   - Economy of Bangladesh 80% of exports dependent on RMG
2. Growth in employment unsafe conditions, low wages & inability to organize
   - Cheap Clothes = Cheap Labour
   - Wage is not enough to cover living costs
3. Uneven costs & benefit-capture from the RMG sector: lowest wages for workers, highest to owners, buyers & global retailers
   - Richest people in the world are heads of the garment industry
   - We are commodities, we sell our labor, fulfilling essential human needs but not for sale
4. Brands hold enormous power: buyer driven global community supply chain
   - Large pressure on suppliers, competition between suppliers to provide lowest cost “Race to the Bottom” at the cost of low conditions, wages & protection
   - Laws & policies are better for producers not workers
5. Growth of sector in Bangladesh didn’t just happen - growth needed policy change

Question 10

Economic Globalization + Signs of its Rise

Answer 10

Ongoing interconnectedness of all aspects of economic activity at a global scale for hundreds of years which has increased dramatically over the past 50 years.

1. Increased international trade & investment
2. Growth in multinational corporations (MNCs): organizations that own or control of 40% the production of goods & services in one or more countries in addition to their home country
3. Growth in globalized production & labor

Question 11

Drivers of Economic Globalization

Answer 11

1. Decreased costs of transportation: 90% fall in shipping costs 1950s-2015
2. Profit seeking by firms in a competitive landscape: firms source production, materials & jurisdictions that can increase profitability, decrease costs from labor, less restrictions on pollution & lower taxes (ex. 1993-2003 → 200 new brands competition. Cost of production in Texas $7 vs China &1.5. With declining profits & risk of bankruptcy → closure of US production, offshoring production)
3. Growth of free trade agreements & investments: easier for capital to move throughout globe
4. Government Policies: signing & encouraging trade & investment agreements through tax breaks, cheap energy, favorable lending, infrastructure that improve economies through globalization (ex. Bangladesh: duty free import of capital goods for 100% export oriented industries, export processing zones, tax exemptions for export oriented RMG)
5. Neoliberal ideas & Policies: unregulated market → efficient economic growth
   - Globalization is ongoing, complex, uneven, reshuffling of cards, transforming & contested (rise of populism: simple solutions to complex issues, Clinton G forever vs Trump protectionism (government policies that restrict international trade to help domestic industries))
   - Divergence between the political discourse of economic globalization & reality
   - Globalization shifts labor geographies: offshoring variants, blue, pink, white, no collar are connected & related, wires laid on top of each other but connected…

Question 12

Free Trade Agreements

Answer 12

Contracts between countries that set conditions of trade to liberalize: reduce barriers to international trade & investments

Question 13

Dr. Pratt

Answer 13

Globalization= evolutionary layers that interact with uneven integration of nations –> new capacities & inequalities

Table of 2 Waves of Offshoring: jobs, processes, key actors, geographies & consequences.

Question 14

Neoliberal Discourse + Key Characteristics & Actors

Answer 14

Main Argument: Markets with less government intervention will have efficient economic growth & most equitable outcomes. Self-interested individuals & formal maximize social returns

Key Characteristics:
1. Trade Liberalization benefits all nations who participate: regions/states should specialize in production for which they produce at a comparative advantage: lower cost than its trading partners

2. Poverty & development is best solved through economic growth achieved by freer markets & more integration with the global market: a world integrated through market should benefit the vast majority of inhabitants
3. State & international institution should advance policies to support the above through reduced taxes, signing more trade agreements, investments & EPZs

Key Actors:
- Firms: MNCs (Multi National Corporations)
- Governments
- International Institutions: WTO, World Bank, IMF controlled by governments of G7 countries

Question 15

Neoliberal Discourse Opponents

Answer 15

• “Universal benefits’’ are highly uneven. Globalization is a constant investment & disinvestments, moving & profiteering
  • “Friction-free-flows” of globalization is unattainable when it comes to the flow of people across borders, for goods it is fine
  • “Global Nature of Globalization” is misleading as capital is not going everywhere, only Global South → Global North
  • Export<Import, must produce more to keep balance
  • “Stateless” nature is false as globalization is a process actively cultivated by governments
  • Race to the Bottom: competing governments shift policies in order to get investments, enter global market, develop out of poverty causing worsening workplace conditions & wages

Question 16

Sullivan & Hickel

Answer 16

SULLIVAN & HICKEL responding to Bourguignon Morrison & Chen-Ravallion graphs; widespread poverty & the rise+spread of capitalism delivering a steady reduction in global poverty is a natural condition of humanity
- Excludes non-commodified resources important to subsistence, only focusing on GDP & commodities
- Excludes the impact of enclosures with known negative impacts
- Contests World Bank’s definition & calculation of poverty, underestimating needs + overestimating the decline in poverty
- Graph truncates history, pre-1800 & colonization are worth understanding

SULLIVAN & HICKEL argues to take a longer historical look, including changes to non-commodified resources (enclosures) & use a welfare focused definition of poverty (height, wage, mortality)
- Poverty was not natural, always existing not behind in time or development, produced by colonial + capitalist structures. Wealth of Global North is underdeveloping Global South
- Improvements in poverty through social movements, unions, increased wages, benefits & protections

Evidence: wages, stature (height), mortality
- India Pre-Colonialism: pre-colonialism was “on par with… Western Europe”, important manufacturer of textiles
- India During Colonialism: British rule wages declined, extreme poverty increased, famines became more frequent & deadly, death rates soared.
Britain innovates technology & enacts protectionism of this technology for their merging textile manufacturing
Banning import of Indian textiles
Eliminated Indian protection tariffs for domestic economy, Indian textiles more expensive & British imports cheaper
- India Post-Colonialism - De-Industrialization: decline in industrial activity in the region brought on by British protectionism wanting to increase their market shares
Unemployed Indian textile workers move to agriculture, manufacturing → raw materials

RMG Viewed as a Solution: growth-led poverty alleviation bringing jobs, increases in income & export revenue

SULLIVAN + HICKEL counters colonial & capitalist histories are roots of cheap labor, fast fashion:
- Uneven structural power relations, asymmetrical, fast fashion uses the colonial made paths & trade routes
- Brands > Workers = Britain > India

Solutions/How do we break colonial power structures:
- Solidarity between Global South mimic OPEC oil prices rising
- Reconfiguring global financial institutions reducing power of Global N.

Question 17

Gender + Gendering of Work + Division of Labor + Gendered Division of Labor + Women’s Work + Devaluation of Women’s Work + Feminization of Labor + Feminist Geographies

Answer 17

Gender: binary socially constructed but naturalized categorical distinction of men & women, masculinity & femininity

Gendering of Work: gender shapes people’s experience & participation in the workplace

Division of Labour: separation of roles in the process of production & in society at large

Gendered Division of Labour: jobs are gender-coded with dominant conceptions of femininity or masculinity

Women’s Work: work perceived as women’s work, feminized historically the domain of women

Devaluation of Women’s Work: treating work less valuable
- Remuneration/Pay: globally women make 77 cents for every 1 dollar men make
- Conditions of Work: sexual harassment
- How employment is received:
Associated with care work, devalued as unskilled
Women’s employment considered secondary income not essential for living to justify low wages, garment brands take advantage
Patriarchy: structural domination of men over women undervaluing women’s attributes, work.

Feminization of Labor: rise of more flexible short-term contractual & precarious forms of labor as opposed to traditional stable jobs → caregivers, secondary, supplement to breadwinners

Feminist Geographies: application of feminist theory/approaches to the study of geography

Question 18

Asia Floor Wage Alliance Report

Answer 18

Authors: Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) + 26 trade unions and organizations 75% of garment workers are women

Research question: what was the impact of COVID-19 on the conditions of work for women in the garment sector in 6 countries (India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Pakistan)?

Focus on understanding “Gender-Based Violence and Harassment” (GBVH)

Report Approach
1. Broadens GBVH to include economic harm

2. Refuses separation between GBVH in work and home
3. Recognizes that these workers are simultaneously disposable AND necessary. Necessary because profit-making relies on them.
4. Women’s devalued status is useful for brands and suppliers of garments.

Report Findings
- Brands apply relentless pressure on suppliers to do more, faster, even more so during COVID 19
- Results in increased pressure on workers, increased GBVH
- Economic harms:
Wage theft: unpaid wages, illegal deductions and terminations
Increased feminization of labor (more flexible, precarious than before)
- Intensification of domestic labor and GBHV in the home workplace

Way Forward Solution: Way Forward:
- Human Rights Due Diligence: brands must be mandated to identify & remediate GBVH, concrete commitments to understanding addressing risk factors across supply chains, trade unions, grievance mechanisms
- Compensating for the Gaps in Employer-Based Social Protection and Services in Production Countries: standards for supporting women, social protection
- Safe Circle Approach & Enforceable Wage Agreements: guaranteed protected living wage, union-driven, worker monitored process

Transnational Solidarity Solution: reaching across distance & difference of privilege & oppression towards vision for a better world

Question 19

Mohanty’s Critique + Politics of Representation + Implications + Improvements Needed

Answer 19

Mohanty’s Critique: Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses 1986: women in Global North found it too critical showing no room for solidarity between women
1. Western Representation of Women & Patriarchy Global South: powerless victims, homogeneous group, without agency, ignoring various ways women resist, challenge & subvert the conditions of their existence, simplified
2. Western eyes picture communities & complex social relations of the Global South in simplistic ways that replay stereotypes: North more liberal advanced modern, South reduced to objects of material need

Politics of Representation: how community, place, person, nation is pictured, narrativized and/or storied in media, writing, government and research
- Character or representation has implications on the discussion, actions and outcomes

Implication of Who the Representation is Helping:
- White saviorism perpetuating same power relations

• Sweatshop Activists:
  too much emphasis on shock value, sensationalist narratives to capture “Western Eyes” leading to simple savior solutions
  Women as preyed upon by hyper sexualized males
  Galvanized consumers not always in helpful ways, harmful
• Leads to solutions like banning child labor, however children serve as crucial source of family income → negative impact on transitioning local solutions
• Government & Industry represent garment in a way to obscure social relationships and exploit the secondary role of women
  Blessing for the unemployed
  Empowering women, reducing patriarchy, those who limit this industry are against these ideals, weaponizing representation

Improvements: Mohanty’s Updated Critique Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles 2003
1. Careful, detailed, responsive to complex specific historical & geographical realities, not homogenous, avoid top down
2. Erase static binary of Global North & South, connections complexities border crossings across places (ex. Global South lives in Global North
3. Research differently, forge transnational alliances, solidarity, collaboration attentive to specificity

Question 20

Dr.Gerry Pratt Research

Answer 20

• 1990s Working with childcare worker organizations in Canada majority from the Philippines, as different questions popped up research expanded
  • 2007 Nanay testimonial play monologues from interviews showing the divide of need & provision of childcare. Traveling with research created transnational solidarity, like the Berlin Push festival
  • Returning to Philippines, the theater production couldn’t reach those who were deeply affect by a class/price barrier
  • Textile factory unionization brought the Henora Law: contractualization of work causing new hiring practices, lost of full-time jobs, elastic labor focus, outsourced, short term contracts to avoid giving benefits, endo contract, lack of survivability
    Transnational immigration boomed
  • Webs of connections knock the Global North off high pedestal as Global North & South are more connected - kids worrying for their mothers, remittances, migration
  • Protectionism/Re-Shoring: bringing manufacturing back domestically would still be migrant workers doing the labor

Question 21

Solutions

Answer 21

1. Raising prices to increase wages and right to unionize bargain
2. Transnational Solidarity: alliances needed to eliminate possibility of brands offshoring to other countries
3. Configure global financial institutions
4. Abolition

Question 22

Issue with raising prices to increase wages and right to unionize bargain

Answer 22

Must address root structural drivers and provide economic incentives to better working conditions and fair supply chains
- Offshoring: if wages increase suppliers will offshore to different countries and factory workers with lower costs
- Neoliberal Capitalism: society incentivizes profitability, cost reduction, individual gain over societal gain
- Gender Division: women’s work is worth less by society, so raising prices doesn’t mean women will get a higher share
- Globalization
- Power Imbalance: Global North still holds massive sway over the pay, conditions and livelihood of the Global South, thus their interests are the final decisions made
- Misrepresentation of Global South: lack of transnational corporation and knocking Global North off of pedestal with a savior complex
- Unionization/bargaining is seen as a threat to business and government interests and therefore experience a lot of adversity and solutions to symptoms of the exploitative symptoms
Adapt to different countries circumstances
- Bangladesh 77% dependent on the RMG industry must be given a slow transition and diversification of industry so the entire country is destabilized.
- Social issues gender division in the workforce must be accounted for.
- Infrastructure, enforcement of policies vary amongst countries, making unionization impossible.

Question 23

Pham & Abolition

Answer 23

Current campaigns are Reformist Reforms serve interests of others not the workers and fail to challenge root drivers, to fix the current system
- #Pay up, diversity modeling, fast fashion exploitation=luxury exploitation

Reformist Reforms: reforms that maintain the status quo and perpetuate existing structural forces. They fail to address “root drivers”

Abolition: system is broken cannot be fixed as it doesn’t do what we intended it to do, need to end it & build new worlds, institutions

Pham Proposes:
- Building alternative forms of clothing production that refuse commodification of labor
- Worker cooperatives - worker owned and controlled

Pham Missing: doesn’t address Global S. geographies, still reform not addressing the root drivers too micro for a macro problem

Question 24

Who is Responsible for Fast Fashion?

Answer 24

KARL MARX - Economic System, organize a working class consciousness to overthrow capitalism, great wealth → great poverty

UPTON-CLARK+SKINNER - Consumer, sustainable consumption, transparency changing habits, positive social media use

HOLDCRAT+SKINNER - Producer, Improved labor & environment standards, sign better protections, allowed unionization of the laborers & collaboration between, better audits, no boycotts

BEDAT - Government, legal & policy reforms, regulations