WHERE AM I WEARING?
WHERE AM I WEARING?
A GLOBAL TOUR TO THE COUNTRIES,
FACTORIES, AND PEOPLE THAT MAKE
OUR CLOTHES
It is often said that we are what we wear. But how many
of us have taken time to consider where our clothes from designer wear to the humble tee-shirt in a huge
hypermarket have come from? Tom Witherow OS (MJP)
reviews a new book by Kelsey Timmerman which offers
a fresh perspective on aspects of globalisation.
A guilt trip?
When I first saw the title of Kelsey Timmerman’s new book
Where Am I Wearing, I thought I was going to be made to feel
outraged at the global corporations such as Nike, Gap and
Primark. Their exploitation of workers in countries such as
Bangladesh and Cambodia would make me look at myself and
wonder how much I needed the new t-shirt I had bought just
earlier this week. However, the view offered is original – we’ve all
seen a few too many Panorama specials and other undercover
camera programmes revealing desperate factory conditions.
Timmerman considers the garment factories as a way that
countries can develop with dignity, without the need to rely on the
West. But the real charm of this book is the fact that Timmerman
takes the global issue of globalization and attempts to see what it
means to people on a personal level.
The writings of his trip to Bangladesh make clear that
people are not working in conditions that would repulse a
Western consumer;
however, the people who
work there do have tough
lives. The only options
open to young men and
women are working in the
garment factory, street
trading or begging. The
first is the only
employment which
provides them with a
steady income. The
difficulty is demonstrated
when Timmerman meets
a family who were forced
to remove their 18 year
ETONOMICS
old son, Arman, from education and send him to Saudi Arabia so
that he can find employment. His sister works in the local
garment factory making just 10¢ per hour. In this way the
factories are described as a way of surviving. What can destroy
this? Timmerman asks many people involved in the factories
whether they know of the anti-sweatshop bill, introduced in the
Senate in 1997. Almost all of them knew of it and knew that it
was possible that any further reform could cause them to lose
their jobs.
On his trip to China, the author describes the social impact
that the growth, which we in the West are so in awe of, is having.
He writes that the air of Chonqing as a ‘chemical weapon’,
illustrated by the fact that people spit everywhere: on trains, on
the streets, even in restaurants and banks. On moving to the
countryside he finds even more disturbing issues. He finds
grandmothers bringing up grandchildren, running the farm and
the house (wooden shed). This is because a whole generation has
moved to the city to fill job vacancies. Chongqing has over thirty
million inhabitants, many of which are of working age. High
growth and employment are positive, but at what social cost?
Ultimately Timmerman concludes that there is little need to
feel guilty about buying from companies who outsource from
developing countries as you are doing the workers a favour. We
need activists to work with companies, not against them, to try
and increase the standards of living of the workers and this
means providing the things which we take for granted: education,
protection against injury and pensions to name a few. This is the
only way that these countries will develop.
For those of you who want to explore these issues further
with the author himself, Kelsey Timmerman’s blog can be found
here www.whereamiwearing.com and you can also follow Kelsey
on Twitter by logging onto http://twitter.com/
KelseyTimmerman
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