tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/artisan-34140/articlesartisan – The Conversation2019-07-17T11:16:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1196802019-07-17T11:16:17Z2019-07-17T11:16:17ZTramping artisans who marched thousands of miles a year are proof that Britain was built by migrants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284481/original/file-20190717-147307-ukwtsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1536%2C1062&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Emigrant’s Last Sight of Home – a painting by Richard Redgrave, 1858.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/redgrave-the-emigrants-last-sight-of-home-t02110">Tate.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere” – so said British prime minister Theresa May in <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/05/theresa-mays-conference-speech-in-full/">a speech</a> which captured the tone of the Conservative government’s long-running campaign to crack down on immigration. From creating a <a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">“hostile environment”</a> for illegal immigrants, to ramping up visa restrictions and pursuing a Brexit deal to end freedom of movement between the UK and Europe, the Conservative government has made strenuous efforts to prevent immigration to the UK. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">Hostile environment: the UK government's draconian immigration policy explained</a>
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<p>What’s perhaps more surprising is that the opposition felt compelled to say something similar: the Labour party’s <a href="https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/negotiating-brexit/">manifesto declares</a> it would honour the EU referendum result and end freedom of movement, replacing it instead with “fair immigration rules”, as yet not clearly defined. </p>
<p>Both parties’ stances contain a grain of irony. The Conservatives – seen in the past as supporting businesses that make money from international labour – now seeking to tighten the borders. Labour – a party descended from unions set up to support worldwide movement of labour – now showing little sense of solidarity with international or EU workers. </p>
<p>But as a professor researching labour history and media communication, I find the greatest irony is that migration helped forge the very social, cultural and economic infrastructures that Britain now seeks to wall off from the rest of the world. </p>
<h2>A brief history of British migration</h2>
<p>Between 1815 and 1930, an estimated <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zz_cGwwuwVQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false">11m Britons</a> left for North America, Australasia and South Africa. During the same period, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zz_cGwwuwVQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false">7m Irish</a> shipped out to the US and the British dominions. Migration on this massive scale contributed to imperial and labour diasporas – economic migrants shifting across international borders during a period of great change.</p>
<p>At the same time, between 1840 and 1911 around <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jnDA4vY9kFEC&pg=PT57&dq=migration+from+countryside+to+cities+in+britain+nineteenth+century&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi8pJyZr7rjAhWNasAKHYZLD0AQ6AEIMzAB#v=onepage&q=migration%20from%20countryside%20to%20cities%20in%20britain%20nineteenth%20century&f=false">4.5m people</a> moved from the countryside to British cities such as London, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Glasgow, Birmingham and Newcastle to take up work and learn new skills. With this came the need to help those without jobs. </p>
<p>Until the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Union_Act_1871">Trade Union Act of 1871</a>, UK trade unions were prevented from organising for political purposes. Instead, workmen banded together as mutual self-help societies. They provided funds for illness and death duties, set up regional support networks and offered members financial support during periods of unemployment. </p>
<p>From the early 1800s onwards, UK labour unions built <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2599989?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">sophisticated structures</a> to support the movement of people locally, regionally and globally. The general workings were similar: societies issued members with travelling documents indicating their good standing, as well as information on union contacts strung along a circuit of towns. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283983/original/file-20190714-173355-j28b3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A typographical union travelling document, from 1871.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Finkelstein</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>Travellers presented themselves to such representatives (available in the evening usually in a pub or meeting space), where they would be issued with an official note for lodgings, offered food and drink and paid a small sum for distances tramped (between a half-penny or a penny per mile). If work was forthcoming, they would be directed to relevant employers; if not, they continued onwards. </p>
<p>In such ways, tramping artisans would often cover huge distances over a course of many months. In one extreme case from 1848, a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2599989?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">tramping typographer</a> marched over 1,800 miles, leaving London to take in the delights of Southampton, Bristol, Glasgow, Stirling and 21 different Irish towns, before returning to his old haunts a year later. </p>
<h2>A global network</h2>
<p>International movement was part of that mix. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, union-sponsored emigration grants offset travel costs of union members, enabling them to circulate along transnational routes as part of the British Empire’s <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/topics/reference/colonialism/">colonial expansion</a> in places such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and India. </p>
<p>The Scottish Typographical Association, for example, operated a structured emigration scheme for its members. Between 1903 and 1912 it paid out over £1,626 in emigration grants – worth £625,000 in <a href="https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/">modern currency</a>. Travel subsidies usually averaged between £5 to £10 per member (worth £500 to £1,000 in <a href="https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/">modern currency</a>), depending on how long they had been a member of the union. This was quite substantial during a period when you could enjoy a pint of bitter in your local pub for a penny, travel from Birmingham to London for 20p, and the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olympic-britain/incomes-and-poverty/cheaper-in-those-days/">average earnings</a> in 1908 were £70 a year.</p>
<p>Governments and civilians in British settlements were often complicit in subjugating, suppressing and destroying indigenous cultures in pursuit of <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/crimes-against-humanity-the-british-empire/5597781">colonial expansion</a>. The ongoing impacts of colonialism in these places are many and complex. Yet migration played its part in shaping those regions in ways that have since defined their national identities, bringing trade skills and knowledge. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-britains-colonial-legacy-still-affects-lgbt-politics-around-the-world-95799">How Britain's colonial legacy still affects LGBT politics around the world</a>
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<p>Migrants supported by union schemes started businesses that were central to shaping the economies of emerging communities and towns, such as Lawrence in New Zealand, Ballarat in Australia and Kimberley in South Africa. They parlayed and passed on their knowledge and expertise to others they encountered on their travels. </p>
<p>The unions that emerged in the 19th century developed complex information and support networks to respond to the need for trade worker movement. They were used to support those who could not find long-term work, and to create global knowledge and skills exchange systems. </p>
<p>British people should recognise that the working world today has been greatly shaped by a freedom of movement that was once encouraged and supported. The flotsam and jetsam of the past, also despised as citizens of nowhere, often became civic leaders thanks to union links and support, offering generosity of communal spirit and embrace of potential worth. It’s best not to forget such lessons, in today’s turbulent times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Finkelstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Migration helped forge the very social, cultural and economic infrastructures that Britain now seeks to wall off from the rest of the world.David Finkelstein, Professor of Social Sciences, Heriot-Watt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1143882019-04-04T20:15:10Z2019-04-04T20:15:10Z‘Made in Van Phuc’: How place identity can help artisans survive in a globalised world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266879/original/file-20190401-177171-1ints7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3264%2C1817&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An artisan is working with a silk weaving loom in her workshop</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The identity of luxury goods firms is often anchored in the creativity and skill of the artisans behind the objects. A case in point is Hermès, where workers spend years learning to work with precious materials such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/hermes-behind-the-scenes-of-the-frenchluxury-gem-80551">leather and silk</a>. This approach allows such companies to distinguish themselves and compete in a marketplace flooded with goods that cost less but don’t have an identity strongly connected to craft, tradition and place.</p>
<p>This approach isn’t the unique domain of just a few firms, of course – it can be extended to those that are currently less known and in more peripheral places. An eloquent example is the Vietnamese town of Van Phuc, in the Ha Dong (Hanoi) district, which has specialised in silk weaving since the 13th century. Establishing a strong place identity – how meanings attached to a locality can affect locals’ sense of self – was essential for their craftsmen to stand out from the crowd.</p>
<h2>Ancient traditions, “new” competitors</h2>
<p>Located approximately 10km from the centre of Hanoi, Van Phuc is considered the <a href="http://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers12-06/010055064.pdf">oldest and best-known silk-producing village in Vietnam</a>. During our research team’s initial fieldwork, we found that in boutiques where Van Phuc silk products were sold, there were similar goods made in China. Based on the products’ variety and price, distinguishing between the two was relatively easy, and because of the craft methods used by Van Phuc’s artisans, their offerings are often much more expensive than similar ones from China.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWtFQNl9Wg&t=102s">report</a> on Van Phuc made by the national television broadcaster of Vietnam, a storekeeper in the village stated:</p>
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<p>“I sold a lot of Chinese silk products, compared to Van Phuc ones, because they are cheaper and there are a wide range of products.”</p>
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<p>An experienced silk weaving artisan added:</p>
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<p>“Van Phuc’s silk patterns are not as diverse as Chinese ones because our products are made manually. Therefore our patterns are still very ‘naive’. There is something unmistakable.”</p>
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<p>According to a local shop owner and artisan, the price of natural silk is around 1,700,000 dong per kilogram (approximately 73 US dollars) while the price of a kilogram of polyester yarn is about 50,000 to 60,000 dong per kilogram (2 to 3 dollars).</p>
<p>Van Phuc’s products are not only made of natural silk, but they also have traditional patterns created during a sophisticated weaving process. By comparison, foreign-made goods have printed patterns and made by polyester or polyester silk fabrics. The savoir-faire of each creation has been improved for one generation to another, guaranteeing high quality.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266682/original/file-20190331-71006-1u9keu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266682/original/file-20190331-71006-1u9keu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266682/original/file-20190331-71006-1u9keu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266682/original/file-20190331-71006-1u9keu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266682/original/file-20190331-71006-1u9keu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266682/original/file-20190331-71006-1u9keu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266682/original/file-20190331-71006-1u9keu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266682/original/file-20190331-71006-1u9keu2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Several Van Phuc’s silk products with traditional patterns in a retail shop.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The authors</span></span>
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<p>Still, appreciating handmade craft items and being able to pay for them is not easy for all consumers. Despite its strong place identity and the quality and creativity of its products, Van Phuc is at risk of losing ground.</p>
<p>In the village, silk fabrics and other silk products are directly sold at home-based workshops of craftsmen or retail stores, among which some are owned by artisans. Nevertheless, due to urbanisation, more and more craftsmen do not have enough space for silk weaving tools to produce their own products. The traditional silk workshops are at risk of disappearing, to be replaced by imported products from China sold at retail outlets.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266683/original/file-20190331-177181-17tyovx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266683/original/file-20190331-177181-17tyovx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266683/original/file-20190331-177181-17tyovx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266683/original/file-20190331-177181-17tyovx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266683/original/file-20190331-177181-17tyovx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266683/original/file-20190331-177181-17tyovx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266683/original/file-20190331-177181-17tyovx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266683/original/file-20190331-177181-17tyovx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Numerous retail shops in Van Phuc.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The authors</span></span>
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<p>For the moment, Van Phuc silk products still have a stable customer base. They are often bought by <a href="http://ven.vn/van-phucs-silk-targets-world-market-24231.html">foreign tourists</a> who seek out unique Vietnamese products, or by Vietnamese who prefer to use high-quality domestic goods. Residents of Vietnam often go to Van Phuc workshops directly and choose the products they like instead of buying at eye-catching retail outlets in the village.</p>
<h2>Place and identity</h2>
<p>The story of craft products threatened by mass-produced goods is not a new one, and can appear everywhere. How to arrive at a long-term solution is the real question. In the case of Hermès, its identity is tightly linked to a place – it is not just “Hermès”, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/hermes-behind-the-scenes-of-the-french-luxury-gem-80551">“Hermès Paris”.</a> Here, the associated “memories, ideas, feelings, attitudes, values, preferences, meanings, and conceptions of behaviour and experience” play a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494483800218">huge role</a>. Indeed, the feeling of belonging to Paris, and French elegance in general, is a significant part of what attract clients to the goods.</p>
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<span class="caption">Silk cloth with ‘Vạn Phúc silk’ woven into its edge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nld.com.vn/ban-doc/ve-dau-ao-lua-ha-dong-20130324014420373.htm">Thế Anh</a></span>
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<p>While <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470593112467268">place branding cannot be carried out for every geographic locality</a> – there’s only one Paris in the world, after all – Van Phuc’s artisans have recently perceived the importance of place identity, and on their products now feature the words “Van Phuc silk” or “Ha Dong silk”. This allows local artisans to distinguish themselves, affirm the high quality of Van Phuc’s traditional silk products, and gain or regain the confidence of Vietnamese consumers. This initial step also allows producers to “shine a light” on local products among numerous foreign ones, in particular after one of the biggest silk brands in Vietnam was found to be selling <a href="https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/business/20171213/vietnams-khaisilk-found-selling-products-with-zero-silk/43126.html">“silk” products with no silk at all</a>.</p>
<p>In the long term, if Van Phuc’s reputation can be expanded to a wider geographic scale – not just domestically but also internationally – their products will surely have a place (identity) in the market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114388/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Many major luxury goods firms have long made place a key part of their identity, and a visit to a traditional silk-weaving centre in Vietnam shows that the approach could work for small firms too.Hung M. Nguyen, Postdoctoral researcher (ORCILAB project, ANR-17-CE10-0013-01), Grenoble École de Management (GEM)Marcos Barros, Associate professor, Grenoble École de Management (GEM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/794692017-12-13T11:23:51Z2017-12-13T11:23:51ZGold rush opportunists, hippie goat ladies, Latino newcomers: California entrepreneurs dream of cheese<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198638/original/file-20171211-9396-2ppeyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=182%2C82%2C3245%2C2443&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Humboldt Fog chèvre, born in a dream.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cypressgrovecheese.com/resources/press-kit.html">T.Depaepe</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea for Humboldt Fog goat’s milk cheese first came to Mary Keehn in a dream. She fell asleep on an airplane and awoke with a vivid picture in her mind of how the cheese looked. And then she set out to realize her vision – in the process, helping to launch a late-20th-century American renaissance in artisan cheese-making.</p>
<p>But the dream didn’t come from nowhere. In Keehn’s telling, the revelation occurred on a transatlantic flight home from France, where she’d gone in 1992 as a young cheese-maker looking for new inspiration by tasting traditional French cheeses and visiting their makers. Indeed, a wheel of Humboldt Fog melds elements of two iconic French cheeses, with a Morbier-like ribbon of ash running through chalky paste more reminiscent of a soft-ripened Valançay. The result is thoroughly distinct.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.cypressgrovecheese.com/about-us/our-story.html">story of Keehn’s Cypress Grove Cheese</a> is a quintessential telling of the California dream. Not merely an entrepreneurial success story, it is a narrative of self-reinvention. The California dream is about moving west (or, as in Keehn’s case, farther north, to Humboldt County from Sonoma) to start anew, seeking not so much to get rich quick as to envision and inhabit a new identity. Cypress Grove’s heroine embodies characteristics that could describe the American artisan cheese industry as a whole: scrappy, innovative and unapologetically indebted to European tastes and know-how – condensing themes that emerged through anthropological research I conducted across the United States for my book, “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520270183">The Life of Cheese</a>.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A day in the life of Humboldt Fog.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Back to the land, making cheese</h2>
<p>Mary Keehn acquired her first goats in 1970, wanting to feed fresh goat’s milk to her first daughter, whom she was herself then weaning. For years, Keehn and her family lived as self-sufficiently as possible. Overwhelmed with more goat’s milk than her human companions could or were willing to drink, she began experimenting in her kitchen and learned to make fresh cheese, or chèvre. </p>
<p>A friend who was opening a restaurant told Keehn, now a divorced mother of four, “If you start a [licensed] cheese factory, I’ll buy your cheese.” And in 1983 – without any official training, apprenticeship or business experience beyond selling her goats’ breed stock – Keehn launched <a href="http://www.cypressgrovecheese.com/cheese/">Cypress Grove</a>. For nine years, prior to the trip to France and subsequent introduction of Humboldt Fog, Cypress Grove sold fresh chèvre and fromage blanc, cheeses more wholesome than gourmet.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198633/original/file-20171211-9383-5vvabh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198633/original/file-20171211-9383-5vvabh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198633/original/file-20171211-9383-5vvabh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198633/original/file-20171211-9383-5vvabh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198633/original/file-20171211-9383-5vvabh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198633/original/file-20171211-9383-5vvabh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198633/original/file-20171211-9383-5vvabh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198633/original/file-20171211-9383-5vvabh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Keehn with a new wheel of Humboldt Fog.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cypressgrovecheese.com/resources/press-kit.html">Cyprus Grove</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, Keehn was one of a number of Americans involved in the back-to-the-land movement who, in the early ‘80s, began making cheese by hand for commercial sale. Located in the Northern California coastal town of Arcata, Keehn grew Cypress Grove into a successful business with national distribution and name recognition that employs over 40 workers – a far cry from its modest origins. In 2010, Keehn sold the company to the Swiss corporation Emmi, although her daily involvement continues.</p>
<p>Today’s cheese lovers can drive (or internet browse) along the <a href="http://cheesetrail.org/trail-map/">California Cheese Trail</a>, stretching from Crescent City near the Oregon border south to Los Angeles. It leads to artisan microdairies as well as Kraft Foods subsidiaries. Created in 2010 by a Marin County dairy farmer’s daughter on the model of wine-tasting maps, the California Cheese Trail today features 72 cheese-making operations. Nationwide, the <a href="http://www.cheesesociety.org/events-education/state-of-the-industry/">American Cheese Society</a> counts more than 900 artisan and specialty cheese operations.</p>
<p>Reflective of the state’s cultural diversity, the variety in California cheese-making is neither new nor unique to the state. But it is indicative of how <a href="https://www.crcpress.com/Edible-Identities-Food-as-Cultural-Heritage/Brulotte-Giovine/p/book/9781138634947">food-making traditions</a> in the United States are often animated by personal narratives of innovation rather than, as in Europe, adherence to customary tradition.</p>
<p>Since 2000, the number of California’s artisan cheese producers has grown exponentially. But while hippie goat ladies have been celebrated as cheese-making pioneers, they are not without precedent. The California dream of a century earlier saw a similar flourishing of cheese-making activity in port cities up and down the Pacific Coast.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198642/original/file-20171211-9451-okw1jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198642/original/file-20171211-9451-okw1jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198642/original/file-20171211-9451-okw1jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198642/original/file-20171211-9451-okw1jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198642/original/file-20171211-9451-okw1jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198642/original/file-20171211-9451-okw1jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198642/original/file-20171211-9451-okw1jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198642/original/file-20171211-9451-okw1jj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">San Francisco harbor at Yerba Buena Cove was so busy during the Gold Rush that ships could wait days to unload.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004664511/">Sterling C. McIntyre, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gold rush roots for new cheese markets</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.marinfrenchcheese.com/">Marin French Cheese Company</a>, in Petaluma, California, claims to be the oldest continuously operating cheese factory in the United States. In 1865, with Lincoln in the White House and the Civil War coming to an end, Marin French (originally Thompson Brothers Cheese Co.) got its start when Jefferson Thompson, a dairy farmer, recognized an emergent market niche in the nearby port town of San Francisco. </p>
<p>The now late Jim Boyce, who purchased Marin French in 1998 from Thompson’s descendants, related the company’s history to me in the course of my <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520270183">own research</a>. During the California Gold Rush between 1849 and 1855, European stevedores who sailed into what’s now called San Francisco Bay delivering goods to support the mining enterprises got “caught up in the fever” themselves. Many abandoned ship to seek their own fortunes mining.</p>
<p>After the gold rush went bust, workers returned to the bay to make a living at the dockyards. As Boyce said to me, “Now, in any workman’s bar or inn… the beer gives them hydration and carbohydrate but no protein,” so “typically in a workman’s bar there’s a jar of pickled eggs or something like that – pig knuckles, sausage.” But in the Bay Area at that time agriculture had yet to be fully developed. “There weren’t any eggs,” Boyce explained, as there were no commercial hen farms. So according to Boyce, enterprising dairy farmer Jefferson Thompson said to himself:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“in a moment of marketing brilliance, ‘I wonder if they’d eat cheese, instead?’ So he starts making these little cheeses, three-ounce cheeses, more or less. And he hauls them off to the docks, and they put them on the table in a bowl, and they were an immediate hit! Why? Because these are European stevedores: They knew cheese! They ate it breakfast, lunch and dinner. And that was the origin of the company.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/_Te1OHOtLk","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>With new migrants come new tastes</h2>
<p>If Mary Keehn’s Humboldt Fog exemplifies personal insight and passion, Jefferson Thompson’s Breakfast Cheese (now Marin French’s <a href="http://www.marinfrenchcheese.com/history/petite-breakfast/">Petite Breakfast</a>) celebrates the generation of new markets. It’s a reminder that the California dream of entrepreneurial reinvention requires not only creative genius but also the appreciative taste of willing consumers.</p>
<p>The Gold Rush brought European deckhands eager to eat soft-ripened cheeses. Marin French was at the ready, hand-ladling Camembert. In the late-20th century, hippie eaters of “health foods” gave way to American Europhiles who valued a diversity of distinctive tastes.</p>
<p>Here it is worth remembering that California, nearly all the up way to present-day Arcata, was until 1848 part of Mexico. Cross-cutting immigrant histories have long underwritten the California dream – and they still do.</p>
<p>The California Cheese Trail declares <a href="http://ariza-cheese.com/">Ariza Cheese</a>, established in 1970, to be “the oldest artisan Mexican cheese-maker in Southern California.” It specializes in Salvadoran cheeses in addition to crumbly Mexican Cotija. You will find Ariza just off Alondra Blvd. in the city of Paramont, east of Compton in LA County.</p>
<p>In 2015, four of the company’s long-term employees – immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador – <a href="https://laopinion.com/2015/02/01/ariza-la-adquisicion-de-un-sueno/">purchased</a> the company with the aid of <a href="http://www.concernedcapital.org/">Concerned Capital</a>, a social benefit corporation that invests in low- to moderate-income communities by helping to transfer business ownership to workers.</p>
<p>In 21st-century narratives of new beginnings are echoes of earlier immigrant worlds. Dreams upon dreams – while consumers continue to savor California cheeses with wide-ranging inspirations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Paxson receives funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. She is on the Academic Advisory Committee of Oldways Cheese Coalition.</span></em></p>California’s artisan cheese-making industry has followed the changing tastes of the state’s population waves, from the mid-1800s through today.Heather Paxson, Professor of Anthropology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/854102017-10-17T14:50:25Z2017-10-17T14:50:25ZWhat tracing a tough commute in ancient Egypt reveals about osteoarthritis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189966/original/file-20171012-31390-uj1o2f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Valley of the Kings in ancient Egypt proved a useful testing ground for examples of osteoarthritis.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Austin</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Osteoarthritis is a disease that is millions of years old. Researchers have even found evidence for <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-know-anything-about/">osteoarthritis in dinosaurs</a>. It’s also one of the most prevalent diseases to impact our bones – and its rates <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1063458414011881">will only grow</a> with an ageing population worldwide. </p>
<p>As our joints wear and tear, the protective cartilage around them gradually breaks down. This leads to pain, stiffness and swelling. Age, sex, weight and genes can all play a role in whether you develop osteoarthritis. But it’s difficult to assess how much repetitive use of a joint can affect whether and where osteoarthritis develops. </p>
<p>Of course, most studies about the disease are very much grounded in the present. But some, like my most recent research, step way back into the past to uncover the disease’s history. Archaeologists have found evidence for osteoarthritis in populations across the world – particularly where individuals would have engaged in harder physical labour for a longer time and from an earlier onset.</p>
<p>My <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oa.2575/full">recent research</a> on osteoarthritis from the ancient Egyptian village of Deir el-Medina is an example of looking into the past to help modern clinical studies. Bones and texts showed how decades of strenuous hikes led to higher levels of osteoarthritis in workers’ knees and ankles. </p>
<h2>The village of the King’s artisans</h2>
<p>Deir el-Medina is the village of the workmen who constructed and decorated the pharaohs’ tombs during <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/hd/nking/hd_nking.htm">Egypt’s New Kingdom period</a> (1550-1070 BCE). The workers at Deir el-Medina were highly literate. Fortunately for us, they dug an enormous pit next to the village and ultimately filled it with thousands of <a href="http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/ostracon.html">ostraca</a> – pieces of pottery or stone with writing on them. </p>
<p>This archaeological trove included amazing records of daily life: letters, receipts, court cases, drawings and more. These reveal that the artisans were highly valued for their skills. The Egyptian state provided them with many benefits as a result. </p>
<p>They had servants to help with daily tasks; housing, rations, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/paid-sick-days-and-physicians-at-work-ancient-egyptians-had-state-supported-health-care-36327">even healthcare</a>. These perks ensured that they could continue their work on the royal tomb efficiently.</p>
<p>But the workforce still suffered from osteoarthritis. There’s evidence for osteoarthritis at the site in the joints of skeleton buried at Deir el-Medina. The workmen’s knees and ankles especially exhibited higher levels of osteoarthritis than women from Deir el-Medina or other comparative populations in Egypt.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189403/original/file-20171009-6971-19plkw4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189403/original/file-20171009-6971-19plkw4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189403/original/file-20171009-6971-19plkw4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189403/original/file-20171009-6971-19plkw4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189403/original/file-20171009-6971-19plkw4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189403/original/file-20171009-6971-19plkw4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189403/original/file-20171009-6971-19plkw4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189403/original/file-20171009-6971-19plkw4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pitting and lipping on the joints of a skeleton from Deir el-Medina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Austin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So what might account for these higher levels of osteoarthritis despite all the benefits afforded to these artisans?</p>
<h2>The dreaded commute</h2>
<p>In Egypt’s New Kingdom, kings were buried in a deep valley in the Theban mountains, their tombs cut into the rock and hidden from view. The workers’ village at Deir el-Medina was established in a neighbouring valley so that the king’s tomb was simultaneously accessible and secluded. </p>
<p>During the week workers stayed in huts that overlooked the Valley of the Kings. The distance between these sites is relatively short – less than two kilometres, but the workmen’s daily and weekly hikes required steep climbs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189366/original/file-20171009-6999-84eywa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189366/original/file-20171009-6999-84eywa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189366/original/file-20171009-6999-84eywa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189366/original/file-20171009-6999-84eywa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189366/original/file-20171009-6999-84eywa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189366/original/file-20171009-6999-84eywa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189366/original/file-20171009-6999-84eywa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The climb to the Valley of the Kings from the village of Deir el-Medina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Austin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Each day, workers descended 93 metres into the Valley of the Kings, then made the return journey to their huts at night: the equivalent of climbing up a 28-story building after a day at work. </p>
<p>These hikes help to explain the higher rates of osteoarthritis in their legs. The next question was how frequently they made this commute. After all, even tomb builders got days off or fell ill.</p>
<p>Here, Deir el-Medina’s extensive texts were a huge help. Absence records and scribal journals recorded the work week and the days different workers were absent. These combined records showed that workers were not expected to work – or were absent – 44% of the year. They were consequently hiking 161 days of the year in a career that lasted between 25 and 35 years. Despite their days off, the strenuous commute took its toll on workmen’s joints.</p>
<h2>Some surprises</h2>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, the workers’ skeletons demonstrated very few examples of more extreme forms of osteoarthritis. As joints break down, bone can eventually rub directly against bone, leaving a polished appearance called eburnation. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189405/original/file-20171009-6960-1y855mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189405/original/file-20171009-6960-1y855mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189405/original/file-20171009-6960-1y855mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189405/original/file-20171009-6960-1y855mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189405/original/file-20171009-6960-1y855mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189405/original/file-20171009-6960-1y855mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189405/original/file-20171009-6960-1y855mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189405/original/file-20171009-6960-1y855mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A joint shows evidence of eburnation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Austin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Only a couple of joints from Deir el-Medina showed evidence for eburnation. These were more frequently from women rather than the workmen. This suggests that the workmen’s regular hikes didn’t provide the level or kind of stress necessary to result in more extreme cases of osteoarthritis. </p>
<p>These findings offer a benchmark to consider how much repetitive joint use contributes to developing osteoarthritis in both moderate and severe forms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85410/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Austin received funding from the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) and the University of California Humanities Research Institute while conducting her research. </span></em></p>Bones and texts showed how decades of strenuous hikes led to higher levels of osteoarthritis in workers’ knees and ankles in an ancient Egyptian village.Anne Austin, Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Missouri-St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/702282016-12-12T17:21:57Z2016-12-12T17:21:57ZFive ethical Xmas presents where no one ends up with a goat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149448/original/image-20161209-31405-mbtls6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Goaty McGoatface.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-57844315.html">WilleeCole Photography</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s the time of year where retailers bombard us with advertisements and special offers of magical gifts to delight our nearest and dearest. But let’s be honest: Christmas gifts often have little purpose beyond the experience of handing them over. They’ll end up in landfill, taking hundreds of years to decompose, slowly oozing out methane gas and contributing to climate change all the while. </p>
<p>And that’s before you consider how these products reached high street shelves in the first place. Santa’s elves are often factory workers in poor countries working for long hours for little reward, though exploitation happens in developed countries, too – delivery drivers in the UK were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/20/road-safety-risk-tired-black-friday-delivery-drivers-health-and-safety-executive">recently revealed</a> to have worked 20 days without a day off to cope with Black Friday orders, for example. </p>
<p>Most of us are aware of these things, of course, but don’t act on them when it comes to Christmas presents. Perhaps we would if we realised that buying ethical presents can enrich the experience for everyone involved. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149446/original/image-20161209-31391-125fqe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149446/original/image-20161209-31391-125fqe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149446/original/image-20161209-31391-125fqe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149446/original/image-20161209-31391-125fqe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149446/original/image-20161209-31391-125fqe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149446/original/image-20161209-31391-125fqe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149446/original/image-20161209-31391-125fqe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149446/original/image-20161209-31391-125fqe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feed the tree.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-164612990/stock-photo-beautifully-decorated-christmas-tree-with-many-presents-under-it.html?src=ONowAEN8SEvwPMdApSxDGw-1-18">luminast</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0267257X.2016.1167108">From interviews I conducted</a>, I found people took extra pleasure in the back stories to ethical gifts they had previously received – from the novelty of pineapple waste <a href="https://www.fastcoexist.com/3059190/this-gorgeous-sustainable-leather-is-made-from-pineapple-waste">being converted</a> into accessories, to reading their children stories from workers in faraway countries who had made their gifts sustainably. “Cleaner” production behind the gift also meant both giver and recipient were more connected to the product. </p>
<p>And yet the trick is to still give something that the recipient will want – some research <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-014-2076-0">suggests</a> that people avoid giving ethical gifts for fear of it being taken the wrong way. <a href="http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped/animal-lovers/goat-ou9010ml">Giving a goat</a> might be a nice way of making a charitable donation to people in poorer countries, but it’s not a gift to the person receiving it. So here are my five gift suggestions for making someone feel warm and fuzzy on Christmas morning while tearing off some wrapping paper at the same time. </p>
<h2>1. Remakery</h2>
<p>Remakery centres dedicated to repairing and reusing old products have been catching on in recent years. London <a href="http://remakery.org">has at least</a> one, for example, while I’m aware of five in Scotland. My local <a href="http://www.edinburghremakery.org.uk">Edinburgh Remakery</a> not only sells upcycled and second-hand products but holds workshops teaching people how to repair broken items in their home, covering everything from computers to furniture to books. It also accepts used goods which the team upcycle and sell in the shop. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149442/original/image-20161209-31383-u94oho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149442/original/image-20161209-31383-u94oho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149442/original/image-20161209-31383-u94oho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149442/original/image-20161209-31383-u94oho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149442/original/image-20161209-31383-u94oho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149442/original/image-20161209-31383-u94oho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149442/original/image-20161209-31383-u94oho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149442/original/image-20161209-31383-u94oho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘We can mend it, we can fix it …’</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Authentic artisans</h2>
<p>The hipster movement might have brought us the likes of the notorious <a href="https://theconversation.com/cereal-killer-cafe-attack-whos-wrong-and-whos-right-in-the-great-gentrification-battle-48293">Cereal Killer Café</a> in London, but it has also spurred any number of creative initiatives that celebrate artisan products. Take <a href="https://ubrew.cc">U-Brew</a>, for example, a brewery where customers become the brewers by attending courses and then making their beer at sites in London, Manchester and Berlin. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149443/original/image-20161209-31405-i5uad9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149443/original/image-20161209-31405-i5uad9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149443/original/image-20161209-31405-i5uad9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149443/original/image-20161209-31405-i5uad9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149443/original/image-20161209-31405-i5uad9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149443/original/image-20161209-31405-i5uad9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149443/original/image-20161209-31405-i5uad9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149443/original/image-20161209-31405-i5uad9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beer we go.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-390989926/stock-photo-unrecognizable-man-in-process-of-beer-brewing-bottles-on-foreground.html?src=Ey_2_TVqv8qWn70Nz06vrw-1-15">Click and Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For those that want, it could even be the first batch in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/03/uk-breweries-on-rise-craft-beer-sales-surge">their own craft beer business</a>. Alternatively, develop an ale yourself in honour of your recipient for the perfect personalised gift – just don’t expect it to be ready for this Christmas. </p>
<h2>3. Local design collectives</h2>
<p>Visit any craft fair and you’ll find creatives and artisans aplenty – not surprising when they can’t afford the high street. But increasingly designers are also coming together in retail spaces as collectives to cover the cost of rent. </p>
<p>A good example is <a href="http://www.snoopersattic.co.uk/">Snooper’s Attic</a> in Brighton, which sells a wide variety of locally designed and produced goods including jewellery, homewares and clothes. As well as offering novel and unique designs that you won’t find elsewhere, many of these wares use reclaimed or sustainable materials. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149469/original/image-20161209-31352-1sizeea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149469/original/image-20161209-31352-1sizeea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149469/original/image-20161209-31352-1sizeea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149469/original/image-20161209-31352-1sizeea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149469/original/image-20161209-31352-1sizeea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149469/original/image-20161209-31352-1sizeea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149469/original/image-20161209-31352-1sizeea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149469/original/image-20161209-31352-1sizeea.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brighton’s finest.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Supporting collectives like these provide employment for young local designers. It gives them an alternative to unpaid internships in bigger cities, while registering a protest against unfair trade at the same time. </p>
<h2>4. Vintage verve</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149444/original/image-20161209-31379-wrdksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149444/original/image-20161209-31379-wrdksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149444/original/image-20161209-31379-wrdksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149444/original/image-20161209-31379-wrdksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149444/original/image-20161209-31379-wrdksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149444/original/image-20161209-31379-wrdksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149444/original/image-20161209-31379-wrdksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149444/original/image-20161209-31379-wrdksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Old is bold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-321114212/stock-photo-vintage-gramophone-retro-music-concept.html?src=VBiDVCqpz97IvwS3DrCSgA-1-43">Sunny Studio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From gramophones to A-line skirts to art deco tea sets, buying vintage is cool again – as social commentator Peter York told us at length in his recent <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b081v950">Hipster’s Handbook</a> series on BBC 4. It not only provides a unique and quirky gift experience, it’s another way of putting money into the hands of local owners. With charity shops also reaping the vintage revival, it extends product lifespans and reduces landfill. </p>
<p>It’s true that vintage shopping may often be more time consuming than the high street (though some have an online outlet), but the treasures that you can find more than make up for it. My most recent discovery was a pair of Japanese binoculars from World War II, still in their original case. </p>
<h2>5. Make something</h2>
<p>Your mum probably still has the cards and drawings you gave her when you were little, and she will never throw them out. And remember getting a mixed tape from a boy/girl and how special that felt? </p>
<p>In both cases, the value was in the giver spending time thinking about someone and creating something just for them. Christmas is the ideal opportunity to tap into some of that magic, whether it’s jams, infused oils, cakes or biscuits – or even paintings, photograph collections or baskets. Personally I have my knitting needles out, just the thing for a cold wintry night.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70228/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elaine Ritch completed this research during her doctoral studies at Queen Margaret University </span></em></p>Sorry kids, these gift ideas are closer to home.Elaine L Ritch, Lecturer in Fashion Marketing, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.