Often, when we think of a t-shirt, not much consideration goes past throwing it on and walking out the door. We discover in The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, author Pietra Rivoli conveys the story of a t-shirt she purchased in Florida for just $5.99. Beginning with core element of the t-shirt, she describes the cotton boom in the United States and why we have reigned supreme as the leading cotton producer. She even meets with a Texan farmer who warms your heart from the very beginning of the chapter. Next, the cotton goes on to textile mills and factories, and Rivoli explains the history of the textile industry. With this lesson, she demonstrates how the textile industry boom was a leading contributor of the Industrial Revolution in many countries. From this point, we see the t-shirt waiting to be stitched together and awaiting its entrance into the global economy. Rivoli then outlines how the garment finally enters U.S. franchises through a labyrinth of politics, quotas, slave labor, and activism. After it is purchased, worn, and discarded it enters a completely new market-- the small entrepreneurial clothing market in Africa, which according to Rivoli, is the only true free market. She illustrates how underdeveloped countries finally catch a break by capitalizing on another country’s garbage, ending the t-shirt’s international journey. Fundamentally, this book forces you to ask yourself some very important questions about our history as a nation, the exploitation of slave and labor, and the state of free trade as a whole.…
Jane Jacobs starts off chapter nine with her second condition for the existence of diversity that is necessary for blocks to be short. For a city to be successful, small blocks with a lot of places where people can turn to is required. She begins by using an example of a man living on a long street and his daily struggles. She also uses an example of people that form a pool of economic use only where their long, separated paths meet and come together in one stream being Columbus Avenue. In that neighborhood, there is geographically so little street frontage on which commerce can live.…
In this journal article, Jane McAdam reviews the events from mid-1950’s up until the 21st century, which have shaped the laws and policies that affect the way Australia manages asylum seekers. The Author use data gained through the Australian Bureau of Statistics, information from a number of cases and Australia government websites to identify the cause of Australia’s negative stigma towards the refugee status. Their research focuses on how ideas have transform from rights or responsibilities, assistance or protection to preventing boats and refugee reaching Australia’s shores. The article is useful to my research topic, as Jane McAdam has…
The Preface of the book begins with organized student protest at Georgetown University, where the author Pietra Rivoli, is a professor of finance and international business. University students take turns speaking at the microphone explaining how the Big Corporations, Globalization, The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the international Monetary Fund (IMF) are exploiting workers all around the world. One female speaker especially caught the attention of Rivoli by exclaiming, “Who made your T-Shirt”. This instance sparked Rivoli’s intrigue, she began traveling thousands of miles and across three continents to find out who did make these T-Shirts that we all wear without giving a second thought about the journey each T-Shirt had to go through to make it here to the United States. This sets the foundation for the rest of the book and explains its purpose.…
Globalization, which is best defined as the expansion of cultural, political, economical and ideological relationships regarding worldwide social exchange and interdependencies, is the underlying motif in Rachel Louise Snyder’s novel, Fugitive Denim (Conley 531). In this work, Snyder uses a theoretical pair of denim jeans to explore the workings of the global market, from the harvesting of the cotton used in making jeans to the fashion design behind the pants seen in stores around the world. Being the beneficiary of inexpensive goods, capitalist nations like the United States and much of the European Union neglect to realize their low-cost end products come about as a result of outsourcing to underdeveloped nations. While this outsourcing benefits the “overdeveloped” nations, it is often at the expense of the underdeveloped nations. In this process, Snyder explores a variety of interrelated social issues, specifically the relationships between inequality, corporations and gender and separately the issues of exploitation, capitalism and consumption.…
During last week’s group discussion, we provided a brief introduction to the book. Part 1- provides an interesting framework for understanding issues with strong economic, political and business ties. Provide a 1 page synopsis of the global markets, apparel and textile industries and the major implications as a result of the WTO major trade decisions. Be sure to include your insight on the situation as presented within the first section of the book.…
Globalization is perceived as beneficial to our economy and society as a whole, but when further defined by some today; it is not only harmful but fatal to citizens and mainly women of the world. Naomi Klein, in “Fences of Enclosure, Windows of Possibility”, uses the theme of fences to explain how often humanity is obstructed due to globalization. Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn discuss the discrimination women are facing all over the world. As a whole, globalization is harmful to women because in many places it is conceived as turning the world into a global market for goods and services dominated and steered by the powerful corporations and governed by the rule of profit. This gives no consideration to human rights, only selling a…
Rana Plaza is just one example of how workers in the garment industry are being exploited. We don’t think about where the clothes we buy come from; we ignore the fact that companies use their workers like dogs for a profit or that childhoods are being stolen away by sweatshops in third world countries. Fast fashion is not sustainable. It’s not ethical, it’s not ‘cool’ and it’s killing our planet. The fashion…
Explain how the production of an apparel article (e.g., pants) can be considered a globalized effort…
In the essays A Web of Brands and Live Free and Starve by Naomi Klein and Chitra Divakaruni, both authors express the different aspects and their opinions of globalization. Naomi Klein focuses on the effects of globalization. In A Web of Brands, Klein looks at how the changes of the garment industry in Toronto connect to the factories of Jakarta, Indonesia. Chitra Divakaruni argues that the United States attempts to stop the practices of indentures, would have terrible consequences even though the efforts are well intended.…
In the documentary Life and Debt, directed by Stephanie Black, we are shown that Jamaican workers serve as near slave-laborers, making downward of $100 a month. In the documentary, workers protest unfair wages, unsanitary working conditions, and their inability to take an appropriate amount of days off. With the spread of globalization, outsourcing has made for goods to be produced at subpar quality. Mass production, in turn, allows for faulty goods. The quality of the clothing decreases due to production, yet the popularity and esteem behind the brand keep the prices in a familiar range.…
“The vast majority of Transterra’s college apparel is manufactured in a factory in Honduras which employs primarily women and children who operate under horrific conditions.” The author is violating the intellectual standards of precision and breadth. The author does not provide enough details to emphasis that the company employs primarily women and children. It could be possible that everyone has a different meaning to horrific conditions. In other countries it is a daily culture to see females and young children in work environments. Therefore, we must be opened minded about other cultures on their point of view in the labor industry.…
There was a creaky step somewhere at the bottom of the staircase – this much she remembered though the memory’s lack of precision was a bit of a nuisance. How was one supposed to flee from a familiar place when the familiarity of it escaped you?…
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, business professor Pietra Rivoli takes the reader on a fascinating around-the-world adventure to reveal the life story of her six-dollar T-shirt. Traveling from a West Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory, and from trade negotiations in Washington to a used clothing market in Africa, Rivoli examines international trade through the life story of this simple product. Combining a compelling story with substantive scholarship, Rivoli shows that both globalization's critics and its cheerleaders have oversimplified the world of international trade.…
Social stratification is a categorized arrangement of large social groups based on their control over basic resources. Patterns of structural inequality, raises the main sociological issue which is, economic development that accompanies human development.…