A terrific idea!
I teach a course on food, an intro, non majors International Studies course
at DePaul University. I have my students trace what they eat for 2-3 days,
then they have to find out not only from whence the products come, but each
place they traverse. Then they have to find the GDP and GINI coefficient for
those places. Then they have to take a world map and draw their food trail.
They love it, and half of the learning is in what they cannot discover. I
was thinking of adding GMO components (can they trace what is in their
food?) to the exercise.
Deborah Barndt's Tangled Routes -- takes a tomato from Mexico to a
McDonald's hamburger in Canada. Mangoes, Chiles and Truckers, similar
narrative.
We also go to a sushi restaurant and the wonderful owner/chef gives a
compelling lecture on the international political economy of sushi. People
involved in production/distribution have terrific knowledge of these
chains/systems. Theodore C. Bestor's Chapter on How Sushi Went Global in
Watson/Caldwell's The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating is the companion
text.
Documentaries:
Black Gold. Excellent documentary on coffee.
Life and Debt.
Darwin's Nightmare.
Global Footprint is a great org, and they have a questionairre for people to
calculate their enviro impact.
Coltan -- it's a mineral in all of our cellphones. I believe the Democratic
Republic of the Congo is a main producer. I have a case and a concept map on
it if you are interested.
Diamonds -- lots out there. Gets you into international organizations, NGOs
and conduct codes.
Yes, the Sacramento Bee series is excellent! Also, if you want to go back to
colonialism, Why We Eat What We Eat.
Cut flowers. Take a rose from Colombia to a prom corsage.
In my past life as a journalist, I wrote a T-shirt story. I only have hard
copy. If you'd like to see it, I could send via snail mail. There is a book
tracing a t-shirt, too.
From: "Robert Darst" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: "Robert Darst" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "GEP-Ed" <[email protected]>
Subject: "The Global Politics of Everyday Things"
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:32:24 -0400
Hi all,
At the suggestion of a colleague in the English Department, I foolishly
agreed earlier this year to develop a new course for our embryonic
Sustainability Studies minor, "The Global Politics of Everyday Things." The
basic idea is to present the students with innocuous items that they use
every day, and then to trace the commodity chains backwards and forwards to
illustrate various aspects of global politics, such as
human/children's/women's/labor rights, trade and outsourcing, violent
conflict, property rights, environmental protection, functional
cooperation, etc. I doubt that there is any aspect of international
relations that cannot be approached in this way. Now I only have to prep
the course, which brings me to you!
Questions:
(1) Have any of you ever taught a course along these lines, and if so could
you share your syllabus and lessons learned?
(2) Do any of you know of good websites where my students (and their
instructor) could trace the commodity chains of multiple products?
(3) Any suggestions for really surprising "everyday things"--that is, items
that no one would ever associate with global politics, but which in fact
have quite striking connections?
Many thanks! I will certainly share the syllabus when I'm ready to roll.
Best,
Rob
Associate Professor of Political Science
Associate Director of the Honors Program
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
