Kelsey Timmerman’s
Where Am I Eating?
HMXP 102
Dr. Fike
Homework
• What errors did you identify in Kelsey’s book?
Kamkwamba’s Message of Hope
2013-2014 Common Book: William Kamkwamba’s The Boy
Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity
and Hope.
• 73: “‘When you go to see the lake, you also see the
hippos.’”
• 269: “‘I try, and I made it!’”
• 275: “‘Whatever you want to do, if you do it with all your
heart, it will happen.’” Moral of the story.
• 280: “I went to sleep dreaming of Malawi, and all the things
made possible when your dreams are powered by your
heart.”
• 8 in the back matter: “‘Trust yourself and believe,’ I told
them. ‘And whatever happens, don’t give up.’”
Timmerman, Eating
• See page 76 in Kelsey’s book for famine in
Malawi.
• See page 164 in Kelsey’s book: “‘Dis is our life.
We cannot change it . . . because the control
we have is just very little . . . dis isn’t
possible.’”
• Pessimism versus Kamkwamba’s optimism.
2012-2013 Common Book
Kelsey Timmerman’s Where Am I Wearing?:
• Epigraph from MLK: “We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a
single garment of destiny. Whatever affects
one directly, affects all indirectly” (emphases
added).
Kelsey’s Elaboration
• Wearing 265: “Basically, Dr. King is saying that what happens in our
community happens to the rest of the world. And what happens to
the rest of the world happens to us. The global is local. The local is
global.” (In Where Am I Wearing?, Kelsey uses the word “glocal”: he
wants us to think globally and act locally.)
• Wearing 255: “When we recognize that the people who make our
stuff have hopes, dreams, and personalities, we can’t help [caring]
about whether their job pays them a living wage and allows them
to reach those dreams.”
• Eating 46: “Weaving plays an important part in Arhuacan culture,”
etc. It is a metaphor in Columbia, but it is also a metaphor for the
overall message that Kelsey wants us to understand. The whole
world is woven together, as MLK says.
The Theme of Mutuality in Wearing
(with emphases added)
Kelsey is making basically the same point in Eating as he does in Wearing.
From Wearing:
• xi: global financial crisis
• 7: chain from workers to consumers (“chain” reappears in Eating 98)
• 8: “the fabric of global trade” (see “weaving” in Eating 46)
• 17: connecting workers worldwide
• 50: stages in the production of cloth
• 178: “‘fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters’”
• 179: solidarity
• 180: “web of economic relationships”
• 191: “brother”
• 255: “iPhone girl”; workers’ hopes and dreams
• 267: how connected we are
Context
• What does knowing the Wearing epigraph’s
context add to your interpretation? Does
anyone recognize it from high school, WRIT
101, or some other class?
The Epigraph
“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all
communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not
be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in
an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single
garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow,
provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the
United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere
within its bounds” (emphases added).
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
Connection
• Besides mutuality, MLK is talking about peace
and justice.
• See Eating 144 (bottom) for these concepts.
MLK in Eating
• In Eating, there is no MLK epigraph; in fact,
there is no epigraph at all; however, MLK is
quoted on page 263.
• POINT: Connectedness (mutuality in Wearing)
is an important theme that runs throughout
the book. See the chart on the next slide.
The Theme of Connectedness
Ask those in row 3 to share these passages with the
whole class.
• 12
• 52
• 141
• 152
• 241
• 263
• 266
The Theme of Connectedness
(with emphases added)
• 12: “These men’s, women’s, and children’s (yes, children)
livelihoods and our lives are inextricably linked.”
• 52: Connections to nature in the par. that begins, “The
mamu explains.”
• 141: “We are one: earth, animals, plants, and people.”
• 152: “There’s just something about sweating alongside
people in the fields that bonds you to them and the land.”
• 241: “Decisions we make in our home impact the world.”
• 263: “a world of interconnectedness”; MLK: “the
interrelated structure of all reality”
• 266: “shared humanity”
A Failure to Connect Early in Wearing
• There is a disconnection between the MLK epigraph and Kelsey’s failure
to engage properly in Honduras with Amilcar, the garment worker with
whom he only spent 10 minutes. Note the disconnections between
intentions and behavior. (The good we would do we do not do, as St.
Paul says.)
• Wearing 5: “I went to the factory and met a worker, but I wasn’t
comfortable learning about his life and chose to abandon the quest. . . . I
tried to forget about Honduras, the worker I [had] met, and my pile of
clothes and their MADE IN labels, but I couldn’t.”
• Wearing 15: “Part of me wants to know about Amilcar, but the other part
is content not knowing—and maybe even a little scared about what I
would learn.”
• Eating 250: “‘Did you ever feel sorry for the animals?’ I ask, as my inner
struggle with carnivorism [carnivorousness] revealing itself. I’ll step away
from my cheeseburger dinner to take a spider outside instead of
squashing it.”
Kelsey to WU Faculty, Fall 2012
• Re. Wearing: He was scared to death of going
solo to foreign countries. (In his new book, he
easily meets a guy named Solo.)
• In Wearing, he would go out of his comfort
zone and then draw back. That is why the first
book’s opening chapters are so tentative. In
Eating, he immerses himself much more
confidently.
Kelsey’s Growth as a “Glocal”
• Wearing: Kelsey’s earlier book gets off to a slow start,
and he has the kind of inner conflict a well-off
American would naturally have when first meeting the
people who make his clothing. In other words, he is
aware that to meet people in the third world is to
indict oneself as an American.
• Eating: His current book unfolds more smoothly (he
has his act down); however, he still has an inner
conflict regarding American affluence and third-world
poverty. (Partly out of guilt, he vows at one point to
plant a garden—and does, albeit a tiny one.)
Question
• What is the relationship between connectedness/
mutuality and globalization? What IS globalization?
Let’s start with the following statement:
• Wearing 180: “But we share little with the people who
make our clothes nowadays. We’re divided by oceans,
politics, language, culture, and a complex web of
economic relationships. It doesn’t affect our daily lives
if they are overworked and underpaid as it did during
the turn of the twentieth century” (emphasis added).
Globalization
• Kelsey defines it as finding cheap labor overseas to meet “tight
margins” (Wearing 8; cf. Eating 151: “tight margins”). So it is an
economic web that not only connects Us and Them but also
simultaneously empowers, impoverishes, and isolates.
Consequently, we are unaware of where our clothes are made (or
food products are grown) and believe that they come from the
store. So we shop at a supermarket without realizing that a Nigerian
slave harvested our coffee or that a Nicaraguan diver died to bring
our lobster to the surface.
• Globalization is “the development of an increasingly integrated
global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of
capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets”
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/globalization)
Summary of Concepts Thus Far
• If we realize humanity’s mutuality/
connectedness and act “glocally,” then
optimism/hope + justice and peace can
overcome despair, injustice, and violence.
• Globalization does not have to make the rich
richer and the poor poorer.
Another Concept: Story
• KT to WU faculty, fall 2012: “Start with a
story.”
• Starting with stories helps readers get
engaged.
• Note: Kelsey was an anthropology major in
college. His love of stories relates to this
academic background.
Story Provides the Links
between Us and Them
From Wearing (with emphases added):
• xii: sharing stories
• 19: each tag has a story behind it
• 179: “quirky little stories about faraway places”
• 255: “the story of their stuff” vs. believing that
“clothes come from the store”
More on Story from Eating
(with emphases added)
• 38: “But I’ve traveled for over 10 years now, and I
always take. I take stories. I take photos.”
• 65: “Gail shows us pictures of farmers. They are
nameless and storyless and happy and proud.”
• 187: “My tale had won me widespread
acceptance at the dock.”
• 258: “So more than just buy certified products.
Learn the stories of those products. Something
with a story always tastes better. . . .”
• 276: “ . . . I’m dedicated to addressing global
issues through storytelling.”
The Point
• There are references to storytelling within a book that is
itself a collection of travel stories.
• In fact, Wearing and Eating are autoethnographies. Auto =
self; ethnography = a description of a specific culture,
especially a foreign one. So an autoethnography explores a
foreign culture within the framework of one person’s
personal journey.
• Story is a powerful tool for changing people’s attitudes,
beliefs, paradigms, etc. Kelsey himself thinks that his
experiences have dissolved the notion of the Other. That is,
he no longer has a sense of Us vs. Them. People are just
folks. He hopes that reading his book will have the same
effect on you that visiting various cultures had on him.
CRTW 201
• Let us now use some of the tools from the
course that follows HMXP 102.
Q@I and Purpose in Wearing
• Questions at issue: Where am I wearing?
– Something more fundamental in Wearing 9: “What are we
as consumers to do [about global inequities such as those
in the garment industry]?”
• Purpose: To help overcome the “producer-consumer
divide” (256)—that is, to illustrate the MLK epigraph’s
point about mutuality and to motivate readers to take
action—by telling the stories of 7 garment workers in
Honduras (Amilcar), Bangladesh (Arifa), Cambodia
(Nari and Ai), China (Dewan and Zhu Chun), and the US
(Debbie).
In Other Words
Producer---------Kelsey’s book---------consumers
3rd world
a bridge
us
Q@I and Purpose in Eating
•
The most basic Q@I: “Where am I eating?” (7). But more fundamentally, “What
are we as consumers to do [about global inequities such as those in the
agricultural industry]?”
• Page 12 is a key page: Turn to it.
– Q@I: Eating will try to answer the questions at the top.
– Purpose and point of view: To explore “the global food economy through my
own out-of-touch consumer eyes and from theirs as boots-on-the ground
producers.”
– Concepts: outsourcing, importation, sustainability, national food security.
– Assumption: Our lives and the workers’ “are inextricably linked.”
– Implication/consequence: “We eat food that maims, kills, and enslaves other
human beings.”
– Conclusion: “The globalization of our diets is an issue of global health an of
national security.”
Kelsey’s Further Purposes
• To indict Americans: See the middle of page 52.
• To underscore the idea that we mess with Mother Nature
at our peril:
– 52: “‘We really believe that anything we do to harm the Earth
comes back . . like Hurricane Katrina,’ the mamu says. . . .”
– 74: “‘We tease Mother Earth, and eventually she swats us into
oblivion.”
– 53: While the Arhuaco believe we are changing the earth, we do
less to reverse the change—and more to out-engineer our
impact.” (He is critical of technological solutions that address
symptoms rather than causes.)
• To motivate us to think globally and act locally. Be a
“glocal.”
So His Purpose Is Also To Get Us To Raise Our
Level of Awareness Regarding Our Food
• Conclusion (answers Q@I: What should we
do?):
– 193: “Companies and people are recognizing that
a food’s origin matters.” This statement
encapsulates the “moral of the story.”
– 194: “Consumers need to ask, ‘Where am I
eating?’ at the grocery store and at restaurants in
order to make responsible eating decisions.”
Important Implication
• 238: “I realized that every bite of food is an act
of conformity or rebellion. Every bite of food is
a political statement.”
Conclusions in Wearing
• What are Kelsey’s further conclusions? In
other words, how does he answer the
following question on page 9 in Wearing?
“What are we as consumers to do [about
global inequities such as those in the garment
industry]?”
• The answers are important because they apply
as well to Eating.
Kelsey’s Conclusions in Wearing
• 9: Be engaged consumers.
• 54: Recognize that sweatshops are a better
alternative than abject poverty.
• 221: Producers and consumers should work
together and accomplish great things.
• 259: Workers should be better paid.
• 260: “ . . . suffering human wrongs should not
be a rite of passage.” (See Eating 112: “rite of
passage.”)
In Other Words
• Think globally, act locally. Be a glocal (row 4).
How?
– For example, we can go to the websites that Kelsey
mentions throughout the book but especially in
Appendix A.
– When we buy things, we should be aware of their
origin and think about the human consequences of
supporting companies whose practices may be unjust.
– Strategic buying (the power of the purse) can effect
positive change. Pay special attention to labels and
only buy Fair Trade products.
More on Story: You Have
To Put Things Together
• It is not just that Where Am I Eating? tells
Kelsey’s story (his trips to foreign countries,
the friends he made there, etc.). In addition,
the concepts that he uses tell the story of
economic globalization.
• What “story” emerged from your work on the
concepts? What negatives does he identify?
This was row 1’s job last time.
What about Changing the System
• Here is the question as it was framed in your
worksheet:
– If Kelsey could adjust the global food system, what
would it look like? In other words, which items
from the list in step one would receive greater
emphasis or be more prevalent? What does Kelsey
think SHOUD be the case with global agriculture?
– What did row 2 come up with last time? (Discuss
this before going on to the next slide.)
Education and Environmentalism
• What does Kelsey suggest about the
relationship between these two fundamental
and powerful concepts? (rows 3 and 4)
Next Concept: Types of Freedom
• Wearing 188: “I suppose not being hungry and
not being impoverished are the most
important types of freedoms—the freedom to
survive. But there are other freedoms that the
1.3 billion Chinese don’t have.”
• What are these other freedoms? Think about
the human values that we mentioned when
we discussed Marx’s texts.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Self-actualization: pursue inner talent,
creativity, self-fulfillment, growth,
potential
Higher-order needs (the most internal):
clearly a matter of education, which is
mentioned in Eating on 58, 99, 119, 128,
135, 140, 142, 227 (row 2 group)
Self-esteem: achievement, mastery,
recognition, self-respect, autonomy
Internal
Belonging-love (social stuff): friendship,
family, affection
External and internal
Safety: security, stability, protection,
freedom from fears
External more than internal
Physiological needs: food, water, shelter,
warmth
Lower-order needs (external)
Analogy
• There is an analogy to be made to Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs.
• Where do Felipe (coffee in Columbia), Solo
(chocolate in Nigeria), Juan (bananas in Costa
Rica), Evanor (lobster in Nicaragua), and Daryl
(apples in Michigan) fall on Maslow’s scale?
• Where do YOU fall?
• How does the hierarchy enable us to critique
agriculture in foreign countries?
Connections to Our Anthology
• How does Eating story relate to statements in
our HMXP anthology?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Par. 6: “Then, again, do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my
obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor?
I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the
dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to
whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all
spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison, if
need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at
college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to
which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief
Societies;—though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and
give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the
manhood to withhold.”
• What do you think about this passage now that you have read
Kelsey’s book?
Daniel Quinn
• Par. 62: “‘You’re really not thinking, I’m afraid. You’ve
recited a story you’ve heard a thousand times, and
now you’re listening to Mother Culture as she murmurs
in your ear: ‘There, there, my child, there’s nothing to
think about, nothing to worry about, don’t get excited,
don’t listen to the nasty animal, this is no myth,
nothing I tell you is a myth, so there’s nothing to think
about, nothing to worry about, just listen to my voice
and go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep. . . .’”
• “‘I should have gotten you when you were seventeen.’”
• Does Kelsey listen to Mother Culture or not? Why do
you think so?
“The Universal Declaration
of Human Rights”
• 23.3: Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable
remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of
human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social
protection.
• 24: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable
limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
• 25.1: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health
and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing,
housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to
security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood,
old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
• How do those whom Kelsey meets measure up to these
articles?
Friedman and Timmerman
• Kelsey Timmerman and Milton Friedman: Do
they agree or disagree? See quotations on the
next slide for suggested answers.
A Contrast
• Friedman, par. 9: “Political freedom in this
instance clearly came along with the free market
and the development of capitalist institutions.”
• Wearing 189: “I worry that the China Fantasy—
economic prosperity yields democrat freedoms—
won’t become a reality.”
• Eating 75: “We tell them that a free market is the
way to prosperity even though it wasn’t our way
to prosperity.”
Peggy McIntosh
• She writes about white people’s unearned
privileges. An extension of her point is as
follows:
• Whites:blacks in the U.S.::U.S. and the
West:Africa and other places in Eating.
• In other words, we as Americans believe that
we are entitled to things that persons in thirdworld countries do not even have access to.
Agree? Disagree?
WU’s Global Learning Iniative
• “By enhancing global education for our students with
the full support and participation of the University’s
faculty, staff, and administrators, we intend for
Winthrop to become a school of distinction for
preparing our students to be educated and involved
global citizens, to understand their place in global
society and their responsibilities to human society at
large, and to take great joy at celebrating the very rich
cultures of their communities, their states, their
regions, their nations, and their world.”
(http://www2.winthrop.edu/gli/)
• By reading and discussing Kelsey’s book, you are
participating in the GLI.
Like WU’s GLI
• “Declaration,” par. 49, article 25.2: “Education . . . Shall
promote understanding, tolerance and friendship
among all nations, racial or religious groups. . . .”
• Martha Nussbaum, page 189, par. 9: One’s education
must stress cosmopolitanism over nationalism.
Cosmopolitan education: you “are above all citizens of
a world of human beings,” which you “have to share
. . . with the citizens of other countries.” Kelsey
Timmerman would heartily agree with this statement.
END