My mom came to visit me today. After I picked her up from the airport, she told me she bought some new shoes for me for work. And little did I know, they were Nike shoes. Oh yeah, the "fashionable" and "lovely" Nike. The box was as fashionable as the shoes, yet the "made In China" tag made me think about our project of being green. I have never bought any Nike products in my life. I have never been interested in Nike's style or and their high prices. I don't know why some people are crazy about Nike.
Even though I was never interested in Nike products, but I have never felt the way I feel about Nike right now. After taking this class and reading about globalization and how many industries have moved their production processes offshore into other countries. Countries like China and Vietnam are the perfect examples to prove how these industries are by affected positively economically and politically by globalization. On the other hand, theses industries have also violated workers rights in so many ways. In "Transnational Commodity Flows and the Global Phenomenon of the Brand", the author talks about today's global economy and commodity flows links consumers from one side of the world to the peasant manufactures on the other side. Nike as an example of these countries utilize the global flow to its advantage. Nike is a corporation built on the historical anomaly of uneven development. On the production side, peasants are paid pennies to the shoe but the shoes are then sold for extravagant prices in other parts of the world. The way these corporations deal with workers in the third world is completely without humanity. It makes me sad to see how many people are so blinded by the name of the brand and the style, and how careless many consumers are about how the products are being produced and where they come from.
Again, in fashion, production is influenced by consumption. In "Adoption and Consumption of Fashion", the author talks about those in the court readily assimilated the fashion that he adored even though it put them in debt. And how the fashion statement becomes a new type of fashion that is marketable so as mentioned earlier productions is influenced by consumption.
After all, the suffers of those workers in the third world countries are caused by consumers. So little do people realized that the products they consume everyday are produced by workers under a low standard working condition. Realization is the most important step toward being green. Even though this project is coming toward to the end line but I believe no matter what happens, i will be more careful of what I consume from now on.
No comments:
Post a Comment