On Fair Trade, Pro-Poor and Inclusivity

I went on an unexpected field trip this Thursday. I interviewed a woman from a local non-profit, a task that I thought would take up maybe two hours of my day. She is one of those higher-ups who has so much energy you start sniffing around for the crack pipe. Somehow, by the end of my day I had been fast-talked into an adventure. At 5:00 pm, I was miles outside the city near a flock of grazing sheep and a screaming donkey, out 50 JD and worried five Bedouins might jump us.

So the deal with the non-profit: they are a leading non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting rights-based sustainable human development in Jordan and in the region. They specialize in the rural sectors of Jordan, which tend to be the poorest. This year they started a farmer's market in an attempt to allow some local farmer's market access and to promote their products and services. The farmer's market would love to be Fair Trade, i.e. no middle men or big business (among other issues), but in Jordan, upholding the tenets of rigorous Fair Trade philosophy can be next to impossible. But I'll get in to this later.

The project director and curiously (but not uncommon) white, westerner, wanted to visit a local glass blower (one of the only in the region) in order to check out his work and possibly sell it at the market. The director, myself and a Jordanian native piled in to my car and navigated our way to the dilapidated shop, with broken windows, a rusty slab of metal serving as the roof and curious children giggling behind garbage cans. Peeking inside through the filthy glass, we could see piles of trash and general disarray, as if the stove had exploded. When we were finally able to meet the glass blower, an aging man with no teeth, swollen feet and hands, who required a cane to walk when he could bare to stand, it was revealed that he didn't have the key to the pad lock denying us entry.

It turns out the glass blower has been locked out of his shop for over six months. Due to the instability of tourism in Jordan, his sales had declined. It probably didn't help that his shop was in the middle of nowhere. The glass blower had been unable to pay the landlord the 120 JD per month rent, which had accumulated into 2,200 JD. Getting the landlord, a Bedouin decked in a long black robe and white head dress, to unlock the door was a family affair where five of his sons eventually stood watch while we chose different pieces of glass to buy and sell at the market.

As we prepared to leave, a fight broke out between the glass blower and the owner of the store, who was demanding the rent be paid. The owner started kicking the boxes we had collected, and only surreptitiously were we able to get them into my trunk. The fight escalated as the brothers began to encircle and the old glass blower appeared as if he were gathering his energy for a heart attack. I really believe the only reason the situation was diffused was because of the non-profits's Jordanian representative, an amazing, petit and eternally good-humored woman who sweet talked the fuming old man into the car, which we immediately locked and started.

On many levels, this is a typical situation in Jordan. The landowner was a Bedouin, the merchant a Palestinian refugee. The good samartins swooping in to help were demanding Westerners who didn't speak a lick of Arabic and knew very little about the background of the situation. The merchant was from Hebron and fled in 1983. He had a 5 year passport with no national number. So there again is our generalized condition of homelessness. This man has no rights in ANY country. He is not a citizen. This is true for around 7,000 Palestinians in Jordan and approximately 500,000 Iraqi refugees. So this man has no recourse for getting locked out of his shop, fair or unfair. I sympathize with both men. The situation is just crummy.

Two days later, this man's work was sold at the farmer's market. Through the director's marketing, almost everything was bought. However, during the market, a forum was held where passionate internationals and development agents, many Jordanians, discussed fair trade and its limitations. Technically, had this market been fair trade only, the glass blower most likely would not have made the cut. He probably uses his kids to help with his work, which violates child labor standards. And most likely his work isn't environmentally friendly. But it becomes a question then of inclusivity and pro-poor, because the glass blower could be further marginalized for his inability to meet Fair Trade standards. So this non-profit's philosophy is that first you have to elevate people to a point where they can even meet Fair Trade standards.

Anyways, I'm digressing and I don't even have a poignant way to finish this story. I just have questions. For example, when we dropped the glass blower off at his house, which was multi-storied and well-kept, I heard the director gasp from the backseat "he's not even poor." It didn't seem like the non-profit truly knew the background of the situation. The glass blowing could easily have been the old man's hobby, although his enfeebled condition bore the markings of a hard life. As well, the situation was directed by the Westerner. The Jordanian representative mainly served as a translator and both the glass blower and the shop owner seemed intimidated to stand up to the Westerner....Oh the complexities of "development".

Reality Check

The cost of living is raising in Jordan. I have not had time to properly research the causes. My colleagues say the origins stem from recently unsubsidized oil. Once again, I'm not sure why the Government has suddenly hefted this burden onto citizens. Both of these issues will be research for another day. However, I was given a quick reality check while talking with two of my colleagues about the growing concern over the matter.

One of my colleagues earns 250 JD a month. This is the equivalent of what I earn in a month for teaching five one-hour aerobics classes a week. For another comparison, his salary is a little more than half my rent. Granted, my colleague's salary is lower because he only has a high-school education, although he has many more years of experience. He also works longer hours than I do. All of my colleagues work six days a week while I only work five. My colleague spends 50 JD a month on transportation alone. He lives in Zarka with his family, which is about an hour away. I'm assuming he works in Amman because job opportunities in Zarka are lacking.

My other colleague, a graduate student the same age as myself, also lives with his family. They live in East Amman (considered the seedier side of the city, however as always, this merely translates into the more impoverished side) in a rented apartment. He has 11 family members, several are his younger siblings still in college. All of my colleague's paycheck goes to support his family. He has another job on the side where he earns approximately 100 JD a month. Basically he subsists on this extra cash. In some ways, it's good that Islam discourages drinking because there is no way he could afford it. A beer costs around 4 JD. This is an expensive city, even by American standards.

However, in Jordan, people are encouraged to spend lavishly in order to display their wealth. My colleagues told me most of the nice cars on the streets have been bought with loans the drivers cannot repay. Extravagant weddings can also lead to extreme financial difficulty.

In 2010, in the tourism sector at least, the markets will be opened to outside investors. This is due to the regulations of the WTO. Around the world, from Mexico to Russia, we've seen the disastrous effects of free markets. I can only imagine how hard this will be for the struggling tour operators in Jordan, let alone, other small entrepreneurs who may face the same challenges in different markets.

With so much seeming wealth in Jordan, its easy to forget that this is a developing country that investors seem to be sinking their money into. Many Jordanian's are beginning to wonder how they will survive the price inflation and the lucky ones are leaving to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Western countries. Even with remittances, it's a scary reality.


*Pictures of Amman souk taken from Internet

"A Generalized Condition of Homelessness"

In Beyond Culture: Space, Identity and the Politics of Difference, Gupta and Ferguson discuss the contemporary difficulty of qualifying space. Diaspora and deterritorialization (whatever their causes) demands a restructuring of our archaic notions of a "neutral grid on which cultural difference, historical memory and societal organization are inscribed."

Besides many pertinent and fascinating analysis throughout the paper, I thought this paragraph was an interesting follow up to my previous post and a comment on the lasting effects of the Palestinian migration to Jordan where approximately 40% of the population is Palestinian, having fled the Mandate of Palestine in the wake of the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars: "The irony of these times however is that as actual places and localities become ever more blurred and indeterminate, ideas of culturally and ethnically distinct places becomes perhaps ever more salient. It is here that it becomes most visible how imagined communities (Anderson 1983) come to be attached to imagined places as displaced peoples cluster around remembered or imagined homelands, places or communities in a world that seems increasingly to deny such firm territorialized anchors in their actuality. "

Survivor's Guilt

Towards the start of my contract, I interviewed local artists for a magazine article about an outdoor exhibition in Amman. I wrote this of the project: "Public art as a social intervention or public art intervention attempts to intervene with “real life”, redefine and challenge the existing notions of public space and augment the status of the status quo. For many artists, the new medium has provided an outlet in what they consider the confining and regulating world of gallery and museum art."

The project was interesting, however interviewing the artists who are attempting to confront and examine socio-economic issues in the kingdom was eye-opening. One artist in particular intrigued me by her honesty about the Palestinian Occupation, it's effects in Amman and her future work influenced by her concerns and observations. She mentioned that most artists are inspired by a question or an idea that becomes a theme in their pieces or a driving force for their work. For her it was about a person's longing to live somewhere else. Unfortunately, she refused to let most of our interview regarding Palestine be printed. I'm posting part of what was omitted from the magazine because I am curious about other's thoughts on the issue and I would like to explore the idea for a thesis paper. As well, since the artist is a native, I feel it provides a more legitimate and thought-provoking perspective about Amman than I could.

"Influenced by her Grandmother’s obsession with Palestine, an obsession she considers present in many Ammanians that is responsible for the transient mood of the city, she plans to conduct a series of interviews with people who lived in Palestine for twenty years and were forced to migrate to Amman. She will ask them to describe their homeland. As well, she plans to record people talking to a psychoanalyst about Palestine. In both instances she hopes to capture a citizen’s obsession with Palestine, which serves as an example of humanities inability to let go. “People here have a guilty feeling,” says the artist. “They have a sick relationship with this place.”

A Poll

A popular radio station was running a poll this morning. The poll had already been run in the States and they were comparing the answers. The question was, which would you rather have: the perfect body or a million dollars? Keeping in mind these things are grossly inaccurate, 78% of Americans had answered: the money. 66% of Jordanians wanted the body. One female, Jordanian listener texted: "Why would you need a million dollars if you had the perfect body? Then you could get men to buy you anything you want."

*Al Pasha Turkish Hamam (bath house)

The Human Side?

In 2005, the Hadassah Medial Center in Jerusalem, Israel was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize due to its equality in treatment, its ethnic and religious diversity, and its efforts to build bridges to peace. On my last trip to Jerusalem, I stayed with a Bolivian couple. They lived in an apartment complex next to the hospital that gave discount rates to patients. In the lobby milled sickly, skinny, bald residents, or pale children, their lips aseptically hidden behind blue masks.

It is a microcosm where death is present in every action, and risky procedures are debated over coffee. The Bolivian couple sighed over how many friends they had lost this year. During my stay they treated Nigerian guests. The boy was 24 with gorgeous, brown eyes and leukemia. He had never been sick a day in his life. He missed Africa and was returning home as soon as he could to await a match. While his brother, who had accompanied him, enjoyed the night life in Tel Aviv, he had trouble walking down the stairs. His frailty was visible through his sweat pants as he melted into the couch. He remained silent, his eyes drifting, while his mother discussed his bone marrow transplant.

Both the Bolivian couple and the Nigerian family had chosen Hadassah after being left without other options. The Bolivian girl had spent a year in Peru and was near death. Hadassah was the cheapest hospital and the most willing to perform experimental procedures. Neither patients had much money to spare. But the Nigerian woman said it best, "it doesn't matter the cost, you'll pay if it's your life."

Because of her treatment, the Bolivian woman had finally, miraculously lapsed into remission. The couple was leaving for home the next day. As they spoke of the ethnic conflicts in Bolivia, their city, Cochabamba, that they had to defend from "indigenous" rebels with sticks and rocks, the men they saw fall dead at their feet, the hate they experienced from those they considered fellow country men, it was obvious they did not wish to leave Jerusalem. The Bolivian man had taken me and my friend around the old city, to the significant Catholic sites, and spoke with affection for Jerusalem. He had found a people in Israel who had helped his love to live.



Living in America can mean that your spheres of influence are largely pro-Israeli. The media does a piss-poor job of unbiased coverage. Whether this is because there is some kind of Zionist conspiracy (i.e. Zionist owned media corporations) or, what I believe to be more likely, a complex and multi-faceted problem, which constrains journalists, such as a lack of historical knowledge, cultural acceptance, time to fact check and space for true analysis, a pressure for constant and easy news, a reader's short attention span and ultimately, the corruption of capitalism. One should never forget the news is a product. It is sold for consumption. And in the end, terrorism is sexy. Sex sells. In America, it seems easier to label an Arab as a terrorist than a Jewish holocaust survivor. But far worse, it is the tendency to create these terms such as "terrorist" that deny the labeled of context.

I'll admit that as a young person, learning about the Sbarro suicide bombings in Jerusalem in 2001, I was horrified by these acts of "terrorism". However, as I grew older, and was influenced by international experience and liberal ideology, my mind broaden to consider the reasons for such acts of desperation. Now on my fifth visit to Palestine and anticipating more, I am finding myself struggling in the other direction, to open my mind to how Israeli's could be drawn to commit such acts of terror.


I had wanted to visit a Jewish settlement on this visit. However, I was unsuccessful in finding the time and the means. I would love to visit Har Homa, an illegal settlement creeping like a virus onto Bethlehem's land, to discuss with a settler the infection that is a constant reminder as it fills the horizon, the view from the windows of Bethlehem.

But my experience with the Hadassah patients has helped to, in some small way, humanize Jerusalem for me, to remind me that a government is not the equivalent of its people, that perhaps there is hope that if a hospital can be renown for its equality, then perhaps this equality can extend to its Arab neighbors.

* Pictures of Bush's visit to the Old City

The "exotic other"

What draws a tourist to a foreign land? I've been mulling over this question after attending the unveiling ceremony of the Madaba Tourism Enterprise Development Project (MTEDP). Four tourism products were introduced at the event including a number of new and improved tourism businesses.

Madaba is ancient. It stretches way back to biblical times and beyond. It is best known for its Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics, especially a large Byzantine-era mosaic map of Palestine and the Nile delta.

The City of Mosaics is in a bit of disrepair. There is traffic congestion, a lack of green space and no real outdoor area for children to play in or citizens to enjoy. So Madaba is getting a face lift. Unfortunately (a mon avis), the greater reason for this augmentation is geared towards making the city more attractive and accessible to tourists. In many ways, I think the reference to cosmetic surgery is apt in that it portrays the superficiality, the constructed reality, of what the city is becoming. Quoted from an informational video of the MTEDP, "Developing tourism human resources depends on people being aware of how tourists expect them to behave."

Madaba is being used as a guinea pig for a more expansive project in Jordan. I shutter to think that what is happening in Madaba could eventually be the fate of many Jordanian communities. The ultimate goal of the project is to increase the visiting period of a tourist from a few hours to several days, so that the city may reap the benefits of the cash flow exchange. The many side effects are problematic, however and of course, the project is funded by USAID.

I don't want this post to be misleading or one-sided, although I have no illusions that it won't be. The tourism project does benefit some of the citizens. I interviewed several of the Madaba entrepreneurs the project was supporting. One man owned the first hotel in the city, the Mariam Hotel. While still family run, it was growing exponentially. He was extremely excited about the advent of responsible tourism in the area and the chance for tourists to experience and understand rural life in the Hashemite Kingdom. He truly believed, and cited examples, of how tourism was breaking down cultural barriers. Another woman who owned the Virgina Mary Mosaic Workshop had been a housewife eager to find work outside the home, but unable financially to support herself. The project offered her a chance to create her own mosaic store where she employs women from the community. As her business grows, she has plans to expand the workshop to help women entrepreneurs in the area as well as employ handicapped women.

Furthermore, in conjunction with the tourism project, some 36 architecture and urban planning students from Germany, Iraq, Palestine and Jordan are working on a joint planning workshop to develop an integrated spatial planning programme seeking to bring an end to the city's increasing urban problems. Quoted in the Oct. 31, 2007 issue of the Jordan Times about the spatial planning project: “What we are trying to come up with is how to develop Madaba’s historical context while at the same time respecting its traditions,” Cooperation Project Manager Christa Reicher explained.

But like the MTEDP, the spatial planning project is reconstructing the city to cater to the needs of tourists. That same article states "Several Madaba citizens expressed their discontent with the local authorities, telling the students that the municipality prioritises tourism, while disregarding their needs." This complaint is visible in the new and improved tourism businesses that were beginning to line the streets

The new shops resembled a planned community in the US. We've all been to those mind-numbing phenomenons where the McDonald's is the same building as the Van Maur's, all the colors are some soothing mauve or dark green, store front signs the same height and in the same style, the streets impeccably clean and eerily quiet, the shrubs perfectly manicured and you nervously lock your doors and roll up your windows because any minute 20 identical children are going to march up to you car in synchronization and control your thoughts. Because you're in the village of the damned. You're in suburbia on steroids.

So why, why, would a tourist want to leave the US and come to the Middle East only to find themselves in a planned community again? Morag McKerron in Neo-Tribes and Traditional Tribes: Identity Construction and Interaction of Tourists and Highland People in a Village in Northern Thailand theorizes about the desires of a tourist: "Hetherington argues that the reason for the existence of these neo-tribes [term used for tourist groups] is as a reaction to the disruption and fragmentation of present day postmodern society. Paradoxically, according to Foucault (1984), everyday living is usually conducted in controlled environments. Modern day tourists, therefore, could be seeking both the excitement of breaking away from the rigidity of the identities performed in the ‘real world’ of the tourist’s home, and looking for the emotional bonding to be found in communities. On holiday, they are looking for what they lack at
home."

But in Madaba, what they are finding is home. The exterior of the buildings in Madaba are a stipulation of USAID. You wouldn't get the grant and the technical support unless you conformed to their wishes. They have to have the same wood, the same block letters and the same green overhang. As well, businesses have to move to new sections of the town, so that similar shops were in clusters. We passed one shop bearing it's original facade, squished between two renovations. My USAID tour guide quickly ushered us past the proprietor, explaining that he was waiting until the last minute to move, i.e. he didn't want to move but eventually, the city would leave him with no choice.
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So what is the nature of a tourist? What are we seeking when we leave the comforts of home to explore the "unknown"? To view the "exotic other"? It's a question that has been plaguing me since my days in Hungary, reading about ethical tourism and wondering how far that extends. It's a huge question. There are many types of tourists and tourism. But I have found that one thing is true in all instances: tourism is a privilege. McKerron notes, "the overwhelming majority of trekking tourists are Caucasian. Although it is well known that millions of Asians and Africans have lived for many generations in Europe and America, it is apparent that they do not choose to holiday in developing countries or visit people who live in more‘primitive’ ways than those of their home nation. The question arises as to the possibility of a legacy from the colonial era affecting the tourists who visit primitive people today. Edward Bruner (1996) argues that tourists are seeking an un-contaminated pre-colonial past, which in itself argues the awareness of colonialism. Bruner suggests that the socalled primitive culture presented for tourist consumption today is a fantasy land of western imagery. Tourists do not, says Bruner, travel to experience the new postcolonial subject (ibid, p.160). Furthermore, he points out that the ‘other’, the postcolonial subject, has already travelled in the opposite direction, and is established in the West, but is seen there as a social problem, and kept hidden. Bruner argues that the elite Western tourist travels to ‘exotic’ lands to view a disembodied and hypothetical other as if visiting a theatre, and to capture them on camera, echoing as an orientalist stereotype the precolonial explorers and their adventures and conquests of the past."

So what are we (and by we I mean Americans in my soci-economic class) doing when we visit a foreign city, travel the world for a year, move to another country? We are obviously enacting the power of our social status and our educational bracket, enjoying it and we are learning. But what are we disrupting? What changes are we inadvertently responsible for? And why aren't more of us staying home to learn? And what happens when city after city is transformed in order to accommodate, to attract, the tourist?When a small minority of people are commoditised by a powerful majority?