Confronting Commodity Chains

Course Objective
The student has acquired knowledge and understanding of:
• the workings of commodity chains and their effects on livelihoods and power relations on different social scales (global; national; local).
• the multiple ways that commodity chains link production to consumer sites.
• different social theories about sustainable development.
• the multiple political uses of the notion of sustainability, as well as the practices and discourses in which sustainability is used.
• the role of (mass) communication and new media technologies in shaping views on sustainability and in hindering/supporting sustainable behaviour.
• the added value of interdisciplinary collaboration to understand complex social problems.

The student has acquired the competences to:
• recognise and analyse the practices of the different stakeholders in commodity chains.
• highlight political solutions and limitations in sustainable governance.
• work together with people from other disciplines and stakeholders outside the academic field.

The student demonstrates:
• the ability to carry out critical research on commodity chains.
• the ability to coherently present research findings in written and oral form.

Course Content
How fair is your Fairtrade chocolate bar? Whose labour has mined the gold in your smartphone? Which sweat shops produce your sweaters? And how do Covid-19 vaccines travel before they end up in ours arms? This course scrutinises the complex issue of sustainability governance. Concretely, it encourages students to explore the (non-)sustainable practices and discourses of the contemporary capitalist production processes. In our globalised “overheated” world, there is a growing awareness that commodity chain infrastructures are unsustainable in the long run, insofar that production and logistics patterns generate continuous crises in the realms of nature, health, social justice, and human well-being. In this course, we explore the multi-scalar (transnational, national, sub-national) economic and political actors that reinforce and resist the current global environmental crisis. In light of the former, this course approaches sustainability as an emphatically socio-political phenomenon, which needs to be studied from both a top-down and bottom-up perspective. For one thing, we urge students to critically examine how sustainability informs the governance of commodity chains. Students will answer and debate questions such as: What are the social and ecological effects of commodity chains (e.g., climate change, deforestation, resource depletion)? How does sustainability inform the regulatory practices of transnational and national institutions? Which meaningful developments of sustainable governance can we identify in commodity chains? Which communication strategies encourage and discourage individuals to switch to green consumption? And what are key challenges that still need to be addressed?

For another, the course also employs a bottom-up perspective, to analyse how sustainable governance affects commodity chain actors in everyday life. Hereby, we offer a critical examination of sustainability in practice, by looking from up close at the social and ecological inequalities the green economy leaves untouched, as well as at the inequalities it helps to reproduce. At the same time, we explore how subjects of governance are not just affected by sustainable regulation, but also appropriate regulation for their own ends and develop their own initiatives so as to create durable futures of socio-ecological well-being.

Teaching Methods
In the first week, students get assigned to “research teams”, with each team consisting of 5 students who, during the length of the course, carry out a mini-research on one particular commodity chain. The commodities that the teams can choose from are: gold, chocolate, clothing, coffee, soy, and medical supplies (tentative).

The research team’s mini-study will eventually result in a magazine (6.000 words), which is handed in at the end of the course (week 8) and consists of individual texts by the team members. The magazine needs to
comply with three criteria: (1) It maps the sustainability bottlenecks that exist in the commodity chain; (2) it analyses how different stakeholders in the commodity chain change, remove, and consolidate these bottlenecks; and (3) it reflects on whether, and if so how, the chain can have a less harmful impact on the socio-natural environment. In addition to the magazine, the research team presents its findings at a Sustainability Conference, taking place in week 7.

For the empirical investigation leading up to the magazines, students are expected to draw on course literature; to rely on different research methods (desk research, interviews, surveys); and to include the most relevant commodity stakeholders in their study (e.g., government, industry, consumers). To guide the research teams in this process, there will be weekly expert meetings in which five thematic experts engage with students on different aspects of sustainability governance. For the purpose of lively and interactive meetings, the experts will rely on empirical examples from their own research, short documentaries, discussion formats, and Q&A rounds.

Aside from the expert meetings, there is a panel discussion with non-academic commodity chain experts in week 1. Hereby, students listen to and debate with “sustainability actors” in the fields of government (e.g., Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs), civil society (e.g., Solidaridad), and activism (e.g., Extinction Rebellion). Furthermore, in order to facilitate the research process, the course also includes a plenary introduction meeting, seven online Q&As on the course literature, two tutorial meetings to discuss the research process and one peer-feedback session – in which research teams meet up with other teams from their tutorial group to discuss preliminary results of their
projects.

Type of Assessment
The course grade is determined on the basis of the magazine and the conference presentation, both assessments of the group effort/magazine as a whole.

Remarks
2nd year bachelor students Faculty of Social Sciences.

Exchange students from social science-related programmes.