Consumed: The need for collective change; colonialism, climate change & consumerism

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Unfortunately I think maybe I overestimated this book - and this could be entirely based on the knowledge level I had going into it.

as someone who’s been plant-based for nearly 6 years for sustainability reasons, i am a strong believer in the combination of individual choices + collective action! The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. Perhaps this is a failure on the part of Grand Central Publishing, who didn’t provide Aja with an editor? On the bright side, this extended rant has inspired me to seek out other books on consumerism, colonialism, and the climate crisis, and to check out the work of the many activists mentioned throughout.The fashion industry has pulled the wool over our eyes but with this book Aja rips it off, finds out who made it, pays them back and then convinces you to join her in holding the industry accountable. There really wasn't a lot of scientific evidence to back up claims, rather it was more of a memoir/personal account of changes needed in the fashion industry to reduce waste. I think this makes for a great introductory read when it comes to the need to curtail consumption, particularly the effects of the fashion industry as a human rights and environmental issue. Footnotes (especially à la Junot Díaz in The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao) can be incredibly useful here, since Aja provides a lot of personal commentary in her work. The information here is not informative, opinion is treated as fact, and I would be generally wary of any author or editor who doesn’t see a problem with providing no evidence to any of the claims made throughout the novel.

I read this as part of a book club discussion about the horrible sprawling impacts the fast fashion industry has had on the world, and because I was really interested in Aja Barber's work and perspectives. These corporations spend more on advertising and marketing than they do on the wages of the people that make their exorbitant amount of clothing. And how these oppressive systems have bled into the fashion industry and its lack of diversity and equality. g. the mispronunciation of ethnic names) but were put into sections about different issues entirely, which only detached you from what you had been reading previously. The initial chapter, "Sustainability and Me," did not particularly impress me as it appeared more autobiographical than focused on sustainability.She will also reveal how we spend our money and whose pockets it goes into and whose it doesn’t (clue: the people who do the actual work) and will tell her story of how she came to learn the truth. The fashion industry exposé has become a well-established literary genre, featuring works by renowned authors such as Siegle, Cline, Press, Bedat, and Thomas. I think an editor could have chopped this remaining section down a tonne simply by removing expressions or paragraphs which had already been said in a slightly different way earlier on. I think that the former statement can be supported with evidence while the latter…not so much (I’m pretty sure that planned obsolescence has only existed for the past 100 years or so.

Maybe it's a reflection of how much target audiences' attention spans have disintegrated over the past decade. The discussion on colonialism was also very disorganized and chaotic purely because it didn't use case studies in a very productive way in my opinion.This is a topic I’ve wanted to be more educated on for a while, and I really loved Aja’s writing style, her emphasis on intersectionalism and her very practical and personal applications of what was taught. Aja Barber has written an eloquent manifesto with a focus on fast fashion on how corporations see the public as consumers and their enormous greed. Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here. Aja Barber lays out the reality of this level of consumption and how it effects the garment workers and planet as a whole.

In the 'learning' first half of the book, she will expose you to the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and the uncomfortable history of the textile industry; one which brokered slavery, racism and today's wealth inequality. This book is a great entry-point for folks who haven’t yet, or are very newly considering their position within systems of oppression. This is by no means a substantial part of the book but it feels like it really encapsulates its chronic lack of substance, at least in the 5th I read before dropping it. I found that their enthusiasm about the topic was apparent in their writing, but I think for me I got stuck on some of the elements which I think could honestly have been saved with a touch more editing. This book is full of common sense, compassion and humanity, gives you plenty to reflect on, and will surely lead to welcome change.Reading this book was like willfully surrendering my head to someone screaming loudly into my ear for a few hours about topics I already knew. In the 'learning' first half of the book, I will expose you to the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and the uncomfortable history of the textile industry; one which brokered slavery, racism and today's wealth inequality. All of a sudden, you’re a climate activist, fighting for the rights of garment workers in countries you’ve never heard of, let alone visited. Ideally you would open this section with a brief summary of how fashion links to colonialism and then dive into specific examples (Kantamanto Market in Ghana, The impact of the East India Trading Company and British colonialism on Indian textile production which we now exploit and cheapen).