Local foreign policy
Marketing
Drew Hayden Taylor’s “This Boat Is My Boat” and Naomi Klein’s “Local Foreign Policy” are similar in several ways as both essays talk about marketing. Despite the fact that the authors of the stories are from different regions of the world, the message that is sent in their essays is about exploitation. As a result, in both essays, the authors talked about the exploitation, the history of the products and the solutions.
To begin with, the exploitation is widely discussed in both essays. Taylor uses some contrasts to explain this point. Kayaks and canoes are used as the lifeblood of Inuit and First Nations People. They were vital means of transportation and survival, not games. But nowadays they are used as toys to amuse bored weekend warriors”. Facing roaring rapids, native people think it is not safe and turn around, while Caucasian natural inclination is to aim for the rapid. In contrast, Klein becomes aware how hard it is for the high students to understand the importance of activism in the context of what they buy. As consumers, they take for granted the exploitation of the workers, because they are not even aware of this fact.
Moreover, both of the authors talk about the aspect of the history of the products. Taylor argues that the history of the bungee jumping was a coming of age ritual for South Pacific young boys, while now it becomes a dangerous sport. And the skiing was developed by Scandinavian Sami for survival, while it is turned into a sport and game. However, Klein exposed the abuses of transnational corporations such as Nike, Reebok and Disney, which pay low wages to workers in poor countries but spend fortunes in advertising to sell brand-name clothes in rich countries.
Furthermore, the authors are both concerned about the solution of this issue. From Taylor’s point of view, “people should pay a royalty of sorts every time they try to kill themselves using one of our cultural legacies”.