GGR 221H1S L5101 New Economic Spaces Geographies of Commodities

Due Date: August 8thth Weight: 30% of final grade Length: 6-8 pages Format: Use a standard 12-point font (e.g Times New Roman) and standard 1-inch margins. Please double space your paper. You can attach copies of advertisements, logos, photographs, or maps if you wish. Neither these nor the bibliography are included in the page limit. Citations: The paper needs a minimum of 2 academic, peer-reviewed sources as well as outside sources such as newspapers, government and NGO reports, and corporate webpages to back up your arguments. Please use an in-text citation style such as MLA or APA. See http:// writing.utoronto.ca/ for more information and citation guides. Assignment: Choose a manufactured product that you use and discuss the commodity chain that links you with the various stages of its manufacturing, distribution, and retailing. What makes this chain interesting or important to our understanding of the modern economy. Please choose a non- product that you personally use and consume. In this paper focus on three major themes: Provide an overview of the commodity chain: Who designed the product and who did they design it for? What raw materials are used in the product and if possible, where are they are sourced from? Where is the product manufactured, a single site or is it part of a complex geographic supply network? By who and how is the chain coordinated, and what are the power relationships like within the commodity chain? What institutions influence this commodity chain? What are the relationships between the locations where the product was designed and managed verses where it was produced? Did using or consuming the product help create or alter your own identity? What happens to the product when you stop using it? Be sure to focus on the geography of the commodity chain, explaining what activities are located where and the reasons for those locations. (Note: you dont have to answer all these questions, but you do need to provide a detailed overview of the complete commodity chain.) Focus in on one particularly interesting feature of this commodity chain. This could be issues surrounding labor conditions or environmental impacts (or, good and responsible labor or environmental relations), an important institution, or anything else that makes the commodity chain a particularly interesting case study. Be sure to make an argument using the commodity chain literature about why this particularly aspect is interesting. Is it important because it is unique or because it is common place? Does this affect how you consumed the product? Is this commodity chain good or bad? You can define this in anyway you want, but be sure to use commodity chain research and literature to back up your argument. How will/does

providing consumers with knowledge about this commodity chain affect their relationships with the commodity and the sites of production? Important Points: The aim of this assignment is not simply to describe the commodity chain. Rather, the goal is to trace the product and analyze the processes and institutions involved in the production and consumption of the good from the perspective of economic geography. Include a discussion of the relationship between sites, explain why the commodity chain is organized the way that it is. What are the implications of this organization? Why is it important to examine this commodity chain? Try to cite academic articles that provide a general understanding of commodity chains, commodity circuits or commodity networks. You may also find articles on the particular commodity or industry you have chosen, or alternatively you may be able to draw parallels with articles discussing other commodity chains or related sectors. You may also be able to identify issue oriented papers that have some link to your commodity such as articles on stop sweatshop campaigns or fair trade and relate some of the key arguments to your case study. To compile your portrait of the production and consumption of this commodity, you can consider the following sources: newspaper or magazine articles; corporate websites; corporate codes of conduct (usually found on a companys website); union and other labouroriented websites (such as UNITE HERE, Ethical Trade Initiative, National Labor Committee); and product advertisements. Remember: be conscientious and critical in amassing and presenting the sources that formulate your argument. This is a difficult assignment. It will require a great deal of research, both in academic journals and books as well as corporate and NGO webpages, reports by governments and labor organizations, as well as newspapers and magazines. For well known products like Nike Shoes, you are expected to draw on both academic and NGO research on the exact commodity chain youre looking at. For less common products (like the makeup you use or a locally made item), you might not be able to find research on your exact product and will instead need to use more general sources to generate an approximation of the commodity chain. Turnitin: Remember to upload your paper to TurnItIn before submitting a hard copy of your assignment in class. Assignments uploaded but not handed in will be considered late.