Sojourns

On Monday I took a trip to visit the Sojourns Fair Trade Store. Upon going I had no clue what the store was going to consist of. I personally thought it was going to be a food store, but what they sold was far from groceries. Items ranged from small jewelry to decadent picture frames and miscellaneous stuff of the sort from countries outside of the U.S. Sojourns is one of the few stores that advocates fair trade. By this I mean they exchange goods based on economic and social justice instead of the typical American way of bargaining. Before this experience, I never knew a place of the sort even existed in Alabama. On their brochure it reads “The key goals of fair trade are to empower low-income, disadvantaged artisans, laborers and farmers around the globe, and to promote understanding between them and industrialized nations.” Organizations such as Worldfinds employs these artisans, laborers, and farmers so they won’t be forced to go into factory labor or starve. Items came from places such as Pakistan, Kenya, South Africa, and Nepal. I read one of the personal stories of an artisan who stated that because of fair trade she did not have to work at a factory where they demand unreasonable hours and give less than sufficient pay. She said because she didn’t have to work at a factory she had more time to spend with her children and had enough money to support them also. Stories like this helped me understand the impact of the bargaining mentality, and it really motivated me to be more mindful of where I shop.
I definitely got more out of this experience than I thought I would. Like I said, I thought the place was a grocery store at first so finding out what it was made for a surprise and an educational experience. If anything it taught me that there are places where you can support anti-factory labor, and the stories brought it home how much stores like this one can make a difference in someone’s life. An anthropological concept that I used is the etic perspective. I asked the cashier questions about how the impoverished are helped by stores like this, and I also ventured to ask why some of the countries are so impoverished. Other than that I used participant observation, and that’s about it. This was the last of my required blogs so I’ll take the chance to say that I really did enjoy the culture blog assignment, and it was definitely a good substitute for a paper.