Author: Tommaso Serra

All photos taken in 2023 © Tommaso Serra, Documentary Photographer London, UK

The second-hand market in Albergheria – a peripheral neighbourhood of Palermo’s historical centre – is a semi-informal market for trading and buying any sort of objects, from hammers and batteries, to ancient paintings and abandoned dolls. This market represents the last chance for a multitude of old and often faulty objects to remain in the Global North, in a city and a region (Palermo, Sicily) that politically, socially, and geographically can be seen as a final harbour of the Metropole. A harbour that is directly oriented towards the Global Periphery, where Western trash usually ends, far away from our eyes and memories.
A diverse population of Palermitani – natives and adopted – set up their square of space with an incredibly varied range of objects from different eras. The idiosyncratic pairing of these objects on the same square breaks time and space and lures you into a hallucinatory-like dive into the past. Every seller here is accumulating and selling whatever they can find, giving birth to an alternative purchasing option to the ultra rapid and expansive forms of modern consumerism.

Tolerated by the city’s institutions for its longstanding presence with 30 years of history, this horizontal activity employs hundreds of people. It emerged through informality as an economic opportunity created by the lack of jobs for people living in the most marginalised fringes of the city. Now, the council has decided to advance a plan to institutionalise the trading activities, though the process could be turbulent. In fact, not all the locals are happy with the presence of the market in front of their doorsteps.
Furthermore, some of the sellers could lose their job due to the bureaucratic language of the legal normative process.

It was hard to believe that any of those stalls could have demand. I could not possibly believe that one single, old, used shinpad could attract a customer, and that was when I realised that I knew nothing about this neighbourhood and its market. A dynamic series of trade and haggling takes place between sellers and sellers, customers and sellers, and eventually with some captivated tourists who got lost, all under a burning sun that makes the ensemble of objects even more surreal. A group of men (in their 30s – 70s) stay in a close circle looking at their stuff from time to time. It appears that everyone knows each other in this market and that some people prefer to spend time with some rather than others.
This is the case of M., who explains how the market has changed in the last 30 years whilst he is trying to sell an old torch with no batteries to another seller from North African origins. He argues that the market is no longer profitable “because of people like them” pointing at the other seller. He argues that now there is too much competition, whilst before it was only for a selected circle, and it was “good money”.
Inside San Severio, a church of Albergheria, Lorenzo, a voluntary of the beautiful church explains his frustration to me. The incredible interiors of the building are falling apart, and some tape has been used to keep parts of the baroque column decorations together. Lorenzo is disappointed about the state in which the church is hanging, but even more, he is furious about the “second hand market” of Albergheria that resides just in front of the church. “Don’t you know!?” he asks me ironically? “Everything you see there is stolen”. For this reason, whatever is not sold on the day gets thrown in the street, he explains. And on the moment, I make sense of all the trash that is present in the neighbourhood at night. But then I ask myself, “who in the world would steal a single shinpad, or an electric toothbrush?”

Some objects might well be stolen like pieces of furniture and old paintings, but that is a minimal part of the market. The real protagonist is the absurd composition of eras of plastic and outdated technologies now incompatible with our world that moves too fast for DVDs, tapes, or floppies.
This market encapsulates many themes that are relevant for the outskirts of today’s cities in the Global North. Consumerism, inequality, informality, and migrant’s integration are all clearly visible in Albergheria, but they unfold in the unique context of Palermo, with its unique socio-historical reality. Here, it is still prevalent a strong sense of community in the neighbourhoods, and despite some tensions, the impression is to be witnessing an organic and spontaneous welcoming of non-natives communities.
Living for a month and a half in Albergheria I had the privilege to be welcomed by some of the residents, who reminded me what it means to live in a communitarian space rather than in an individualistic society. This project wants to depict both a morbid manifestation of consumerism through the photos of the market stalls, but it also wants to offer a window on the life of the people that live the neighbourhood every day, all through an analogue aesthetic of a camera that is as old as this market.

MSc Migration, Mobility and Development Studies Jane Baker Award Assistantship

Through the generous support of MSc Migration, Mobility and Development Studies alumna Jane Baker, this summer I have undertaken a Research Assistantship under the supervision of Dr Anna Lindley. Together we have been working to track the burgeoning elements of ‘quasi-detention’ in UK’s asylum system.

I carried out a literature review of academic research, NGO reports and media coverage to explore how this term was increasingly being used to describe the restrictions of asylum seekers’ freedoms. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Immigration Detention’s inquiry into quasi-detention in December 2021 provided a comprehensive, evidence-based review (APPG, 2021). Through analysing the Napier Barracks, Penally Camp and Tinsley House sites, the report exposes the increasingly blurred lines between detention and asylum accommodation and the traumatising effects for people seeking asylum.

Various forms of ‘in-between spaces’ have been emerging – from barges, to military barracks, to hotels. More and more, what were first intended as emergency measures are now commonplace, with the Napier contract being extended without consultation with the local government and community (Jesuit, 2023; Asylum Matters, 2022). Indeed, the Government has positioned Napier as a prototype for future asylum accommodation, which will accompany more hardline legislation like the ‘New Plan for Immigration’ within the National and Borders Act 2022 and Illegal Migration Bill 2023 (Cole, 2023; Jesuit, 2023). Everyday life in these kinds of sites can be characterised by socio-spatial isolation and surveillance. Movement, privacy and access to support services are systematically controlled in the name of cost effectiveness and security. Behavioural (dis)incentive-based enforcement approaches are common, extending outside of the sites themselves; indeed, protesters were warned by police that asylum claims of Napier residents would be negatively impacted if their protest went ahead (Jesuit, 2023).

I found comparing asylum reception and detention in the UK with the wider European context particularly interesting. Despite being a key feature of asylum regimes across Europe, detention remains an opaque phenomenon, practiced and justified variously from one country to the next. Populist anti-refugee rhetoric (Özerim and Tolay, 2021) and the growing backlog of asylum claims are driving European governments to diversify the types of facilities which receive and detain asylum seekers – from hotel airports and police stations in France, to vessels in the Netherlands, to army barracks in the Czech Republic (Asylum in Europe, 2023; Home Office, May 2023; Szczepanikova, 2012). Widespread emphasis on migration control is being used to justify the institutionalisation of excep-tional, hostile measures. Indeed, although originally established to tackle capacity challenges, Italy’s ‘Extraordinary Reception Centres’ were built into the country’s new asylum regime from 2018, which came with poorer provisions and integration services (Novak, 2021).

The entanglement of different actors involved in asylum decisions and practices has complicated questions around responsibility and accountability. Indeed, although EU frameworks encourage state institutions to hold all decision-making power, private institutions have increasing influence, while many NGOs have faced resource challenges or been pushed aside (Szczepanikova, 2012). EU law also distinguishes between reception and detention, yet simultaneously “blurs those divisions when regulating areas where both notions come into play”, this ambivalence creating significant legal flexibility for state-endorsed detention policies (European Council on Refugees and Exiles, 2020, p.7).

The last couple of decades saw the UK build one of Europe’s largest asylum and immigration detention systems (Global Detention Project, 2016). Particularly since the pandemic, the UK’s approach reflects the trends of exceptional flexibility with detention, including use of emergency state powers to prolong confinement and extend temporary measures (Jesuit, 2023). In sum, ‘quasi-detention’ appears to be a concerning trend, with institutionalised ambiguity allowing practices to continue with limited scrutiny or understanding. We need to acknowledge the human (and financial) cost of normalising quasi-detention.

This blog is an original submission for the course Feminist Political Economy and Global Development and was written in January 2023.

I slip on my jacket, plug in my earphones and step outside, pulling the door behind me. I scrape my hair into a bun, a few strands escaping loose around the sides of my face. I’m on my way to the Barbican Centre to see Rebel Rebel, an exhibition featuring the miniature portraits of 28 feminist icons from pre-revolution Iran by Soheila Sokhanvari. I reach for my phone and press play. I’ve been listening to the same song on repeat. When it’s not playing, the notes and lyrics echo inside my head. Baraye. It means “For the Sake of” in Farsi. If you haven’t heard it already, it was written by Shervin Hajipour and has become the anthem of Iran’s current intersectional feminist protest movement. The penultimate line, “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” translates as “Woman, Life, Freedom.” It is the rallying cry that can be heard rising from the streets and flooding social media feeds.

Image of Jina Mahsa Amini on sign held by protester in Iran: Ozan Köse/AFP/Getty Images

The current uprisings were sparked by the murder on the 16^th of September 2022 of Jina Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old, Kurdish-Iranian woman. She was arrested and subsequently brutally beaten by the morality police of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) for violating Islamic dress-code through her “improper” wearing of the hijab. Under the IRI’s Penal Code, girls over nine years of age must cover their hair and neck, conceal their figure with loose-fitting clothing and ensure that no skin is visible from wrist to ankle. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, governs with an extreme interpretation of conservative, fundamentalist Islam incompatible with progressive interpretations of gender equality.

Iranian authorities deny responsibility for her death; claiming that she suffered from a heart attack after being transported to a station to be “educated.” Jina’s death has reawakened and added fuel to a collective trauma and rage; galvanising people across Iran and internationally, to demand an end to the violent oppression of all women in Iran by the patriarchal, theocratic state.

The struggle is for autonomy and choice and against the objectification, hyper-sexualisation and nationalistic politicisation of women’s bodies. Over 500 protesters have since been killed and around 20,000 arrested. There have been accounts of torture and rape leaked by those held in custody and widespread “poison attacks” on thousands of schoolgirls across the country. The female journalists Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi who broke the story of Jina’s death after reporting her funeral in her hometown of Saqqez, in northwestern Iran’s Kurdish region, have been silenced and imprisoned for “conspiring with foreign intelligence agencies to undermine national security.” Shervin Hajipour was also arrested for the release of “Baraye.”

Beside Jina’s grave lies a picture of her smiling defiantly with her thick, dark hair on show. Women’s hair, and the cutting of it, is a symbol of protest and mourning in Iran, dating back to references made in the 1^st century CE, by Ferdowsi, in his epic poem Shahnameh. This act, along with the burning of headscarves, has re-emerged as an act of solidarity, a political statement, an expression of anger and grief. Her headstone reads: “Dear Jina, you won’t die. Your name will become a symbol.” Despite the fact that most news and social media outlets refer to her as “Mahsa,” she did not use this name. That was the name she used for official documents that was given to her in compliance with the Iranian law that all names must be rooted in Persian or Islamic history. Her real, Kurdish name, Jina, means “life-giving.” In death she has reclaimed her name and Kurdish identity, her hair and her body. They have metamorphosed into symbols of resistance, liberation and power.

A large protest last year in Tehran: Agence France-Presse, Getty Images

Women in Iran have a long history of being instrumentalised by patriarchal regimes and as agents of political struggle against them. Their physical bodies have been used as symbols of national identity and their labour and reproductive power have been utilised for political and economic gain. In Caliban and the Witch: Women the Body and Primitive Acculumation, Silvia Federici (2004) expands the notion of enclosure to include women’s bodies, arguing that they are both targets and the lifeblood of patriarchy and capital accumulation due to women’s reproduction of the labour force and their unpaid domestic and care work. In the Iranian context, Razavi (2022:12) states that Khomeinei’s, “New Clergy actively sought to control and direct the structures of labour, reproduction, women’s sexuality, and the family, and to inhibit or co-opt labour-organising among workers.” Women are also seen as the guardians of tradition and customs due to their role in socialising the next generations yet are simultaneously second-class citizens.

The Iranian nation-state’s legitimacy rests on the control of women’s bodies. Under the Shah in pre-1979 Iran, many of the seemingly progressive reforms of the White Revolution in fact resulted in the generation of surplus value from women’s unpaid labour. Following the 1979 Revolution, state legislation was restructured to usher in more conservative gender roles, curtail women’s rights and cement an image of the “authentic” Iranian Muslim woman in opposition to the “Westoxified” woman that had been promoted by the outgoing imperial Pahlavi monarchy and the liberal intelligentsia. Many Islamists as well as their secular, left-wing opposition believe the unveiled woman is emblematic of the erosion of cultural identity and a Western imperialist attack on traditional Iranian values.

A Dream Deferred: Portrait of Haydeh Changizian by Soheila Sokhanvari, 2022.

“Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” originates from the Kurdish slogan “Jin, Jîyan, Azadî” used by the Kurdish Freedom Movement: a network of grassroots organisations actively practising resistance to patriarchy, nationalism, imperialism and capitalism. Their ideology is rooted in the science of Jineology coined by Abdullah Öcalan who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999 and who was influenced in part by Murray Bookchin’s theory of social ecology. Jineology is built on the principle that until all women experience liberation, no society is free. It focuses on praxis and critiques Western feminisms for their failure to provide alternative realities. Öcalan contends that bodies gendered as women were the first exploited colony upon which all subsequent systems of domination (including ecological destruction) were established and so to abolish these violent systems we must target the cancerous root by dismantling patriarchy and the centralised, capitalist nation-state. Jineology rejects all forms of hegemony and advocates for democratic confederalism, autonomy, cooperative economy and principles of political ecology, feminism and multiculturalism.

I’m standing in front of a painting of Haydeh Changizian. In the early 1970s, she was the prima ballerina of the National Ballet of Iran. Her unveiled hair is adorned with a golden headpiece and pearls. Her gaze drifts softly towards the top left-hand corner of the frame as though she is looking to leap from her 2D confines. There’s a rebellious flicker in her eye. I imagine her gracefully soaring off the canvas, pirouetting around the exhibit hall. Her portrait and her dance mournfully reminisce elements of the past, yet stand as hopeful, solid reminders of a possible alternative future. In the words of Öcalan: “the most urgent need is to conquer the thoughts and emotions of subjugation.” Art, literature, dance and music are critical in efforts to bring about radical change. They relay stories and embody memory and imagination, guiding people to feel, understand, then think and act. The movement today stretches far beyond resisting mandatory hijab. The veil is merely the most visible manifestation of state control. This is about how gender, race, the nation-state, capital and religion are used as tools for oppressive power. Just as this movement has grown from the Kurdish Freedom Movement, it has the potential to forge more solidarity networks making ties with transnational and intersectional groups facing distinct but connected struggles.

References:

Federici, S., (2004), Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, Brooklyn: Autonomedia.

Moghadam, V. M., (1993). Modernizing women: gender and social change in the middle east. Boulder, USA: L. Rienner.

Öcalan, A., (2013), Liberating Life: Woman’s Revolution.

Razavi, S., (2022), ‘Rocks and Hard Places: Gender, Satire, and Social Reproduction in Pre-Revolutionary Iran,’ Review of Middle East Studies, 55, pp.69–90.

The blog is original work for the Feminist Political Economy and Global Development course

In the past weeks, I have encountered the book Transgender Marxism (Gleeson and O’Rourke, 2021). For the first time in months, I felt that there had been a fundamental shift in how I problematise my way through my days. I started reflecting on the instances of social reproduction through which I sustain my Non-Binary body (and being) in my everyday life. I started grasping the value that is produced, the one that is negated, the labour that all this requires.

This is not a review of the book but a series of personal thoughts. 

1. passing 

1.1 

At the end of a twelve-hour shift, I sit at the cafe where I work and wonder why no one respects my pronouns. If it happens, it is often when I decide to wear make-up or a skirt. I feel tokenised.

I start rethinking how my body feels after meeting a client at my sex work job. “My little boy”, that’s how they call me.

I gag. 

I start rethinking how I pass, why I pass, what negotiations it entails, and how oppressive it sometimes feels. 

Passing scars me. 

It devours me.

I do not eat; empty stomach; empty body; I do not feel my body; can I transcend my body?

I passed. 

Passing is exhausting. 

Passing is productive.

It generates my gender /(un)genders.  

1.2 

Dickson, writing in Transgender Marxism (Gleeson and O’Rourke, 2021), speaks about transition as socially reproductive labour spent teaching ourselves new gendered ways of being. These might require a painful degree of passing as something that is legible and that does not disturb the integrity of gender for the functioning of the capitalist system. This integrity is not necessarily ‘the gender binary´. Indeed, it increasingly often includes specific expressions of queerness that do not challenge the myth of individuality and private property.

I read Transgender Marxism, and I think of how I make up for the wounds of passing. I look back and now see the care I learned to take through social interactions with my queer chosen family, through baths, walks, and new clothes. I begin to understand emotional labour as socially reproductive work. 

2. care beyond the family

2.1 

Socially reproductive labour speaks to the myriads of activities that allow for the waged worker to exist. Such labour is often unrecognised and unwaged under capitalism and, as Bhattacharyya (2018: 42) argues, this invisibilisation is ‘a matter at the heart of how humanity comes to be divided and allocated differential value’.

Furthermore, Lewis’ Abolish the Family (2022) professes that the homo/hetero-normative family is the privatised nucleus where the (waged) labourer and her capacities are reproduced. Therefore, under neoliberal structural adjustment, the costs of the privatisation of care, welfare, and social reproduction, are internalised in the family.

I have the privilege of having chosen to live far from my family, and I benefit from the distance from that nucleus. At the same time, I have no means to translate how trans*ness, and the wounds of passing, have changed me. I cannot access the family anymore, I think— and if I must— I ache.

2.2

This makes me think about queer organising groups, for instance, Wages Due Lesbians, and how they demanded the recognition of the unpaid socially reproductive labour that they carried as individuals placed outside of the family.

Wages Due Lesbians were an organisation linked to the International Wages for Housework movement and, accordingly, they moved specific demands towards their unpaid labour. They demanded compensations for lesbian mothers’ labour under the conditions set by the privatisation of care structures in the heteronormative household, a space that becomes inaccessible for many queers.

Image: University of Ottawa Archives / Canadian Custody Cases – The Case for Wages for Housework.

2.3

In 1986, in the UK, Wages Due Lesbians took part in the Time Off Day, part of the Time Off For Women movement, and articulated a list of demands that asked for compensation for the labour that queer individuals have to engage in for self-determination, survival, and resistance.  

They demanded compensation for 

‘Coming out – a continuous process of working out when, where, how, to whom, on what occasions’,

for ‘having to get by on low women’s wages or poverty-line benefits’,

and for ‘doing emotional and physical work for lovers, friends, family… but never being acknowledged for doing it because your relationships are not ‘real’…’. 

(Wages Due Lesbians, cited in Gleeson and O’Rourke, 2021: 85-86). All that time spent self-medicating, all that work necessary to re-think the gendering of my body, all that care that my close-ones have to provide, they are all forms of unrecognised, unwaged labour that permit my own reproduction as a non-gender-conforming body.

Meg Wesling (2012, in Gleeson and O’Rourke, 2021: 95), calls this ‘queer value’ to indicate ‘social activity that goes beyond subsistence and reproduction’ but also includes them and that aims at caring through joy, the comfort of the body, affect building, and myriads of efforts that sustain our being despite the marginalisation that we face. A marginalisation which, again, comes with the choice, coerced or non, of refusing homo/hetero-normativity.

Image: Radical History Review / “We Can’t Afford to Work for Love”. New York Wages for Housework Committee, 1974.

3. care as resistance

The choices I have made have shaped my relationship with the gendered reality of my body.

‘In other words, my material relation to the world brings me into being’

says Dickson in Transgender Marxism (Gleeson and O’Rourke eds., 2021: 216).

In turn, alongside the privilege I have as a non-working class, white, European individual, the changing gendered legibility of my body has shaped the socially reproductive labour I take on. This is both unpaid labour and work of resistance that allows me to re-invent my gendered and sexed material reality in ways that disturb homo/hetero-normativity.

As Hedva’s Sick Woman Theory (2020) argues, care is protest, and a praxis of interdependent sociality. Establishing interdependence through practices of communal care, as queer individuals, challenges capitalism by posing an alternative to the individualised homo/hetero-normative monopoly over welfare.

As a final thought, I then want to think of recognition and compensation as not a goal in itself but as the realisation of the radical value that our everyday thriving poses to capitalism. I think of care as the root of alternative forms of being together, of healing, and of re-making one-another.

I then write these final lines:

Passing.

The cognitive dissonance of knowing ourselves through the frames of others, of re-making our genders while awaiting for the recognition of the gaze.

But I come back home and I wear the crop top you gave me. And now you borrow my shirts. I smile at seeing your fear and joy when you rub your newly shaved head.

We re-make ourselves, we give each other gender, communally. We care and imagine otherwise. We imagine joy.

bibliography

Bhattacharyya, G. (2018). Rethinking racial capitalism: Questions of reproduction and survival. Rowman & Littlefield.

Gleeson, J.J. and O’Rouke, E. (eds.) (2021) Transgender Marxism, London: Pluto Press.

Hedva, J. (2020) Sick Woman Theory. Available online at https://www.kunstverein-hildesheim.de/assets/bilder/caring-structures-ausstellung-digital/Johanna-Hedva/cb6ec5c75f/AUSSTELLUNG_1110_Hedva_SWT_e.pdf

Lewis, S. (2022) Abolish the Family: A manifesto for care and liberation. London: Verso Books.

This blog is an original submission for the course Global Commodity Chains, Production Networks and Informal Work

Imagine you’re scrolling through TikTok and you spot a content creator re­viewing a top. You click on the spon­sored link: Shein’s web­site opens and the top is only 3£. The pic­tures are question­able, but you want it (and it’s so cheap!). So you buy it, and also grab a few items more to get your shipping discount.

When the clothes are delivered, you realize they are below your stand­ards. The stitches are loose, the mate­rial is poor, and the fit is unflattering. Ok, bad pur­chase, luckily it was just a few pounds. You discard eve­rything.

When buying clothes from Shein, consumers fo­cus on their indi­vidual im­mediate grat­ifica­tion, since they are well aware that they may be of shoddy make. Shein’s supply chain, and their own agency within it, doesn’t enter their mind. In October 2022, Channel 4 re­leased a docu­mentary investigat­ing Shein: A Chinese online fashion retailer founded in 2012 and currently the fast­est growing company in the indus­try. Today, it is val­ued at 100 billion US dol­lars, more than ZARA and H&M combined. Shein’s unrivalled growth is propelled by their ex­ceedingly low prices and complemented by their mar­keting strategies and ser­vices meant to accommodate users’ desires fully.

Generally, supply chains in the fast-fashion industry are riddled with labour violations and negative environ­mental externalities. Shein’s busi­ness model is notable even in this context, sounding new depths to become a new phenome­non altogether: dispos­able fashion, where demand is artifi­cially am­pli­fied, buyer commit­ment is non-existent, and ap­parel qual­ity is ex­tremely poor. In other words: buy now and throw out. The blame rightfully is on Shein and its un­ethi­cal and unsustainable practices. However, their busi­ness model could not survive without the con­sumer’s frenzied pur­chases, a key driver and component of unethi­cal sup­ply chains. Indeed, con­sumers are part of the supply chain be­cause they have agency over the purchased clothes. And it is the planet who is the ulti­mate con­sumer.

Photo from Public Eye

Shein’s disposable fashion supply chain

Shein’s supplying factories

Shein’s Sustainability Report pro­vides a window into how they operate. Based in Guang­zhou, China, they have over 10,000 em­ployees and rely on more than 6,000 sup­plying factories. UK’s Channel 4 news recently uncov­ered at least two Shein sup­plying facto­ries blatantly violating Chinese La­bour laws and ILO stand­ards.

The Public Eye report confirms the poor working standards across the supply chain. It was not the first time that similar violations were found, Shein’s “Supplier code of con­duct” also being a repeatedly beaten safeguard. These are the factories that supply #Shein­hauls.

The employees’ working conditions Working conditions in the fashion supply chain are notori­ously poor. Lead­ing brands like  Zara, H&M and GAP have hardly been immune to scandals over the past few decades.

The Channel 4 inves­tigation un­covered Shein’s horrifying, yet common re­ality: 18-hour shifts, no minimum wage, employees paid 3p/gar­ment, hu­man error punished by withholding ¾ of a worker’s daily pay, and less than 1 day off per month. That’s how a 3£ top is made profitable.

Regrettably, these are not unu­sual conditions. Predominantly mi­grant workers from the Chinese prov­inces ac­cept this reality be­cause it is one of the few “careers” available to them.

The urgency and extreme effort these workers are coerced to deliver is driven by the demands of disposable fashion: quick delivery times and on-request produc­tion schedules are the only way to feed the ravenous, yet un­committed hunger for cheap clothes of Shein customers.

What makes Shein’s business model different from other fast fashion businesses?

Shein operates differently from other fast fashion retailers. In fact, Shein relies on effective use of micro-influencers, which makes the com­pany even more heavily reliant than usual on a globalized market­place.

Indeed, #Shein and #Sheinhaul have 43 billion and 7.2 billion views on Tik­Tok: powerful, cheap publicity that can infiltrate social media bubbles around the world to persuade all kinds of customers.

Like TikTok, Shein’s website em­ploys algorithms that antici­pate con­sumer preference. Shein claims to “collect and use the amount of data nec­essary for you to have a great shop­ping experi­ence”.

The variety of options they are able to pro­vide are the result of their data collection methods: scraping the in­ternet for users’ trends and patterns to predict what cus­tomers think they will want. Shein also pro­vides on-demand pro­duction, meaning that their produc­tion process starts when the customer places the order. Their strategically marketed production model coupled with data mining allows Shein to ar­tifi­cially amplify demand. Its web­site is manifest of an opaque use of customer data, known as dark patterns. In other words, their web­site manip­u­lates con­sumers into buying worthless and disposable clothes. While affordable clothing op­tions are a must for many during today’s cost of living crisis, it is this una­bashed consum­erism that makes disposable fashion new terri­tory in the landscape of consumer behav­iour.  

Environmental impact

The impact of disposable fash­ion, and the consumerism it entails, on the environment cannot be un­der­stated. Textile production contrib­utes more to climate change than in­terna­tional avia­tion and shipping com­bined.

Shein reports having limited un­sold in­ventory from the industry aver­age of 25%-40% to single digits. Nevertheless, it produces about 10,000 new articles of clothing daily. That these products will almost surely be of very poor quality raises the question: Are they not just trading un­sold inventory for throwaway clothes that will end up in landfills all the same?

As consumers buy dis­posa­ble items, which they sometimes dis­card after a single use, it is clear that they bear significant responsibility for clut­tering the planet with discarded cloth.

How Shein’s Disposable Fashion Changes Consumers’ Responsibility

When consumers do choose to buy sustainably, they must pay a higher price. Many argue that the (necessary) bur­den of sustainability should not fall upon consum­ers and it should not be their responsibil­ity to find the more eth­ically sound product.

Budget conscious shoppers are constrained by their income and may have no alternative to affordable cloth­ing. In a fast fashion world, limited consumer budgets are a strong argument for shifting the burden of sus­tainability from con­sum­ers to retailers.

That said, given Shein’s incredibly low prices, notoriously poor apparel items, and encouragement of uncom­mitted purchasing, are Shein’s customers really buying cheap out of neces­sity?

In reality, Shein consumers are creating waste for the sake of satisfying a marketing-induced thrill. Shein goes beyond fast fashion: it thrives off of frenetic buying habits and the pursuit of ever-chang­ing trends that result in unfulfilling short-term glee at best, and, at worst, disappointment over poor quality garments that move directly from their packaging to the trash. Con­sumers should think long and hard about exactly what their 3£ are buying. Dumpsites are the ultimate con­sumers of disposable fashion. Companies are partially to blame, but customers are also active participants in these unethical supply chains. Ulti­mately, consumers must accept responsibility for their role in fuelling the wasteful practices of the disposa­ble fashion industry.  

Image by Caleb

The Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) has recently partnered with SOAS’ Development department to enable single honours Development Studies students the opportunity to take part in the Development Studies Immersion Programme (DSIP) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM).
Last year, for the first term of our academic year (and slightly more), I took this opportunity. I spent the first half of my final year at SOAS studying at UGM and interning in Yogyakarta through ACICIS, gaining in-country experience of development, which I now believe to be vital for development students, especially for those who want to work in the field after graduation, and even more so for those who have ambitions to work overseas, particularly in the Global South, in development. The DSIP programme comprises 2 components: half of the semester (8 weeks) is dedicated to learning Indonesian, followed by a one-week break which most students took advantage of to travel to other parts of Indonesia, or to other Southeast Asian countries. The final 8 weeks are spent interning.
The semester came with many ups and downs, but after reflecting on my return to the UK, I’m glad I did this, as the experience has been invaluable for my own personal development and for helping guide me on future paths I’d like to explore post-graduation (which is approaching scarily fast!!!).
To help you make your mind up, here’s some key things I think everyone considering the module should know before making their decision:

1. The majority of universities that ACICIS partners are Australian universities – of our cohort of 37 students, 31 were Australian students from Australian universities. Not all students on the ACICIS cohort are DSIP students, 17 of us were on the development programme, and the rest were on a range of language, business, law or international relations courses. DSIP students typically spend much of their time together in the first half of the semester so these are likely to become your closest peers.
2. ACICIS provide good support, but Indonesian organisations look and operate differently to ones that we’re used to, you should remember this when you go. Things are a lot more laid back in Indonesia and sometimes it seems like people might not know what they’re doing or things are falling apart a bit, but this isn’t the case. Just trust the process and everything ends up fine – it’s ACICIS’s job to make sure you’re okay and that everything with your course goes fine, and they will do this.
3. Indonesians are some of the friendliest people I have ever come across. They are extremely hospitable and welcoming and excited to share their culture and get to know foreigners (especially in Yogyakarta). They tend to go above and beyond for people, you will find that they even do this for strangers. ACICIS and UGM provide you with Indonesian buddies to help you find a place to live and settle in (they are all fluent in English), and they often remain good friends for the rest of your time there (and beyond), even those who are not your personal buddy. You will have no shortage of friends and company in your time there. Be aware of your extremely privileged place as a westerner, as this is definitely part of why we received such good treatment.
4. Despite the friendliness, Indonesia is incredibly racist and colourist. This was very relevant to me and the other SOAS student as we are both non-white women. People were still very kind and friendly to us, but we were treated noticeably differently to the white students by whom we were surrounded for the duration of the trip. We were often ignored and not welcomed in the same way. People would assume we were from India (many Indonesians genuinely think that everyone in the Europe and Australia are white, so don’t understand you can be from Europe or Australia and not be white) and sometimes treated us a little rudely. On discovering that we were from the UK, they would apologise, or change their behaviour. Indonesians (particularly women, sadly) idolise white skin and often bleach their own. Be careful of moisturiser, SPF and lip balm there as most is skin lightening. I would also have people take pictures with me, only to lighten my skin in them afterwards. It is a complex issue, as the west, and especially the UK, are responsible historically and continue to perpetuate the idea of being white equating to being of more value as a person. We were of course also aware of our place there as westerners who still received better treatment than Indonesians, but it did change the trip for us. Many Indonesians truly believe that white people are better than them, and of more value, it’s really sad and complex, but be mindful that this will also be applied to you if you aren’t white. And if you are white, think about how you use such a privilege responsibly.
5. The language progamme at UGM, INCULS, was disappointing. Most people took to paying for private classes to learn the language. The teachers don’t really speak English, which might be okay for intermediate and advanced learners but for beginners it doesn’t really work, as they just went straight in speaking in Indonesian and didn’t understand our questions, nor could they translate for us, so communication was very difficult. Organisation of the course is poor, and the tests were not near the standard we are used to (though it does mean that everyone tends to do very well!). Wisma Bahasa charges around £15 per class (1h 45mins) and as you get a student discount on top of that, I’d recommend going to them to really get to grips with Bahasa. It isn’t imperative as you can pass the classes without additional lessons, and even Duolingo can go a long way helping your language skills, but if you want to really be able to learn properly and talk with Indonesian’s I’d recommend Wisma. The teachers are excellent and they are flexible around your schedule.
6. Professional workplaces look very different in Indonesia, and I think they´re great. They are friendly and caring – if anyone is off sick, they are simply concerned and there is no irritation towards people for being off or missing work. They have lunch together every day, the whole office, and it makes the work environment so inclusive and friendly and easy to fit in to, especially as foreigners who aren’t fluent in the language. They also chat a lot with each other, and it’s absolutely fine, no one is worried about their boss seeing them chat or waste time. Everyone knows that everyone works hard and will finish what they need to when they need to. The internship component was extremely enriching for most students and again, I’d highly recommend the module for everyone who wants to work in overseas development, even just for this component.
7. Expect to get sick at some point. It’s never really serious and is usually just your stomach adjusting to different foods. It’s a bonus if you don’t, but pretty much everyone did. Expect different standards than we’re used to here in London for lots of things, accommodation, food, roads – it’s all part of the experience and a lot of fun.
   
   
   Overall, I’d definitely recommend that development students who have the option take up this opportunity. It is invaluable as a development student to apply what we learn in our degree to real life, and to understand the in-country context of development instead of just reading and writing about it. The negatives are commonplace everywhere in the world, and I spent 6 months pushing myself out of my comfort zone, travelling an incredibly beautiful country and part of the world, trying new foods and meeting people from all over the world, some of whom will be my friends for life, and some will be useful contacts for the future. London is still home to me, but a little less so now, as this trip has absolutely confirmed my ambition to work overseas in development.

Over the last month of summer, Term One, and the Christmas break, SOAS, partnering with ‘The Australian Consortium for In Country Studies’ (ACICIS), gave single degree Development Studies students such as myself the opportunity to study a semester abroad in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The experience has been incredibly formative, and at times, extremely challenging. However, despite facing bumps in the road, I ultimately found the time spent in Indonesia participating in the ‘Development Studies Immersion Program’ (DSIP) overwhelmingly positive, enriching and, invaluable in both my personal and professional growth. I was and remain passionate about ‘In-Country’ opportunities to study development. I believe every development studies student should, before committing to the field, experience life and grassroots participation in the Global South

Daily life in Yogyakarta is far slower than London, work is more flexible and often remote. Over the past six months I have been able to travel, see, eat and experience more than I could have ever imagined. The Indonesian people in most cases are incredibly hospitable and kind and the culture is rich and diverse. The natural beauty, from beaches to mountains is incredible and I found myself constantly humbled by my surroundings.

The Development Studies Immersion Program (DSIP), which accounted for 60 credits of Year three and, included intensive language training (facilitated by The ‘Indonesian Language and Culture Learning’ Cultural Science Faculty (INCULS)) alongside Indonesian focused development lectures at Universitas Gadjah Madah (the highest ranking university in Indonesia). Additionally, the program provided an internship placement opportunity upon the completion of classes, which I chose to spend at a local grassroots organisation, Project Child Indonesia. I focussed my efforts on the advocacy for, and wellbeing of, children living in poverty in the coastal and riverside areas of Yogyakarta.

Educationally, the semester abroad has been more of a holistic learning experience than simply an academic one. INCULS language lessons are not particularly suited to beginners, and the majority of the cohort chose to enrol and pay for additional separate language tuition in order to meet basic survival needs. The development lectures were interesting, and the Indonesian perspective was incredible to hear first hand. For example, I found the week focusing on feminist issues particularly engaging due to the region’s developing religious and social attitudes towards women, and how this was perceived and studied on an internal level as opposed to from an outside western perspective. Furthermore, examples were all contemporary and rooted in Indonesian current affairs. However, the concepts were not particularly challenging. Additionally the format themselves are not dissimilar from the seminar-style lectures at SOAS.

The NGO placement may have been the highlight of the entire ‘Academic’ side of the program. Project Child were an incredibly motivated, tight knit and passionate team highlighting exactly why grassroots development is important and the key to Development in Indonesia. Project Child work on an array of projects, from sanitation and clean drinking water to education and English language skills. In particular, recent projects have included a program teaching the children how to code and an increased focus on mental health, wellbeing and mindfulness. Project Child focuses on allowing interns agency over their work, and through them, I was facilitated in both topical research, events, and communications and, advocacy. I cannot imagine being allowed such professional freedom and creativity in a western placement, or indeed, in a global NGO based in Jakarta.

During my time abroad I found notable challenges. In particular Indonesia is still incredibly racist and colourist, as a person of colour you WILL be treated differently, and in many cases badly in comparison to the white exchange students. While this is less of a problem in more globalised locations such as Bali and Jakarta, Yogyakarta and surrounding Java struggled with the concept of a person of colour being from the west, and even more so in refraining from constant and daily microaggressions.

Ultimately, however challenging the experience was, the resilience and adaptability demonstrated across this semester’s cohort has been an inspiration. And I feel incredibly lucky to have experienced Indonesian life, travelled the country and studied alongside a group of talented, driven individuals. For all its failings Indonesia is an exciting, dynamic environment to be in and forced me out of my comfort zone. I have learnt more about the culture, community and structure of the country and will walk away from the experience with a much better understanding of development in the Global South, a language skillset that will be invaluable going forward, and professional experience.

Cross-stitching or phulkari has been around me for as long as I can remember. My nanu (maternal grandmother) was skilled in the art of cross-stitching, and she passed it down to my mother as well. Throughout the various homes I’ve lived in, I’ve always been able to admire fully handmade, meticulous, ornate cross-stitch work whether in wall hangings, cushion covers, or as embroidery on clothing.

In a similar way, Manpreet Kaur inherited the art of phulkari from her mother and grandmother. She now runs Parveen Phulkari House in the town of Patti located in Amritsar, Punjab. Although it is revered as a traditional skilled art form in Manpreet’s and my own cultures, it is sadly also a dying art form. Usually seen as a pastime for women at home, fewer younger women are interested in learning the art of phulkari, and what used to be handmade stitching is now being increasingly mechanized. According to Manpreet, mechanized phulkari loses the unique quality of handmade phulkari and thus loses some value.

Seeing cross-stitch work or phulkari is always a reminder of my late nanu and the amazing needle-and-thread work that her hands could produce. It gained her so much respect in her local communities, which is an ode to the cultural reverence of the art. It is also a reminder of the dynamism of my mother as she does cross-stitch work whenever she has time away from her full-time job.

Manpreet’s business is a wonderful example of preserving heritage that also serves to empower women in many ways. For homemakers, it enables them to either learn a traditional skill or earn income off a skill they already have. For others, it fosters an interest in upholding traditions and producing art that can be both admired and used. Either way, Manpreet’s business and workshops are expanding the scope of opportunity for women in her community.

Manpreet is enabling women in her community to continue these traditions in their families just as it has been passed down in my family. I cannot help but deeply appreciate Manpreet’s efforts in upholding heritage, promoting the arts, and empowering women in her community.

Manpreet is one of the many artists featured in the GRID Heritage project’s online exhibition. For more information on Manpreet and her work, visit India Manpreet Kaur | GRIDHERITAGE.

For more information on GRID Heritage’s vision, scope, and other exhibitions, visit https://www.gridheritage.com.

(“image of coca farmers Colombia – Bing images,” n.d.)

I had a chance to attend the Drugs and Disorder Conference from Feb 14-16, where I had an opportunity to learn about how drugs affect individual lives in Myanmar and Colombia ; I specifically learned how the demand for the cocaine that comes from the manufacturing process of coca leaves has impacted farmers in Colombia. 

The Colombia situation particularly interested me because the presenters discussed work they were doing in tandem with local human rights organizations to ensure coca farmers were taking steps to protect their health as they grew coca. Unfortunately, the researchers found that farmers were not consistently implementing all the recommended safety measures. So, why would farmers cultivate coca in the first place? The demand for coca and its higher financial value makes it such that farmers grow coca for their livelihoods over other legal crops to support and try to improve the lives of their families and communities. The other question here is why farmers choose not to implement the aforementioned safety measures. I asked Linda Ordonez at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia to shed some light on why farmers weren’t prioritizing their health even though they were educated about safety measures. 

It is essential to note the individual farmer’s multiple internal and external forces stresses, most notably the high demand for the coca itself and the legality issues, as the farmers are growing something illegal in the eyes of the Colombian government. Linda informed me that coca cultivation must be done quickly and succinctly to avoid seizure by the government, meaning the utilization of harmful chemicals that help the coca grow faster. Because many of these growth chemicals have been banned as coca growth-enhancers, the farmers receive them in unmarked packages, not knowing all the potential hazards. On top of this, farmers are also forced to work at night, grow their coca in fragments, and hide coca with other legal goods – all in an attempt to avoid erradicadores – a fitting Spanish cognate for those that confiscate and destroy coca. 

While this creates a complex set of policy challenges for the Colombian government, the ones caught in the middle of the coca demand and government attempts to erase it are the farmers trying to find a means of subsistence. 

For more information on this situation, Linda’s work, and other topics covered at the conference, please visit Drugs & (dis)order: Findings and future directions – GCRF – Drugs and Disorder (drugs-and-disorder.org).

Starting from February 14, a group of academics and stakeholders will come together to share the latest research findings on the effect of illicit drug economies in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Myanmar. The conference will focus on the role of drugs in terms of peacebuilding and development in these conflict-affected states.

The conference will feature country-specific and thematic analysis, policy engagement opportunities, and even comic exhibitions from the spotlighted territories.

For more information and to register, head to

https://hopin.com/events/drugs-dis-order-findings-and-future-directions/registration