Episode 05: Consent, Power + Trauma in Ethical Storytelling with Joy McBrien

08/20/20 • 42 min

From saviorism to poverty porn, for decades, storytelling has become part and parcel of marketing and fundraising efforts. For social enterprises, stories about the lives of the artisans who design and create products are shared often in the name of transparency. With storytelling a core part of many brands' marketing strategy, the conversation around consent is often overlooked.

“Mission-driven products are often sold using some level of someone's trauma and it ultimately makes you feel like you're just being valued for your traumas and nothing else."

Both the biggest strength and failure of a social entrepreneur is storytelling. Where light otherwise remains unshone, social entrepreneurs share stories of hardship, poverty, and inequality. As an unintended consequence, these stories often further deep-seated racial power dynamics first introduced with colonialism.

In episode 5, I am joined by Joy McBrien, the founder and CEO of Fair Anita, a fair trade social enterprise that strives to build a more inclusive economy for women. Fair Anita works with 8,000 women across 9 different countries to create fashion accessories ranging from jewelry to handbags. Their vision is to design a world in which women and girls can grow up feeling safe, respected, and valued no matter their geography.

Language in Storytelling

Language has the power to break and also reinforce stereotypes. I found it interesting to hear Joy talk about "agency" instead of "empowerment." Empowerment is a very loaded word and one I see often used by social enterprises to describe the impact of their work on the artisans they work with. Personally, I find the word empowerment quite problematic because it reinforces the idea that the person on the other end has no power to begin with, essentially discounting any form of agency.

“What does it mean as a white woman working with almost exclusively women of color? What am I then saying with that word because ultimately the word empowerment means to give power and I don't really feel like that's what it is. I think there's a mutual giving of power — like there's power in our combined relationship our shared experiences, but I don't feel like it's one-sided as the word empower suggests.”

Why is knowing the maker's name not good enough? Why is it that instead of sharing professional bios like most companies do of their employees, fair trade and ethical brands choose to share intimate details about the personal lives and trauma of makers?

Informed Consent

There is a difference between saying, “Sure you can tell people about my personal trauma” and knowing exactly the extent to which someone's photo and narrative will be used, on swing tags, in shops, on social media, on your website, and so forth. It is important for markers to understand what exactly they are giving consent to, and what that might mean for them, their families, and ultimately, their privacy.

"Remember that storytelling takes place not just on social media, but when we're talking to customers and building those relationships. Even if it's not trackable, it's still really important ...and necessary that we're sharing those stories with consent and and in a way makers would want to be portrayed."

Consent in Photography

We tend to take photos and share them without really thinking much about consent or compensating the person like we would a model in the Global North if we were using their photo to sell our products.

“If you're walking on the street and you think it's fine to take a picture of somebody doing something over there. They're still in the picture — you still have to get their consent. If you don't feel comfortable getting their consent, that probably means you shouldn't be taking their picture.”

The classic example I like to share is that of the "Afghan Girl,” an iconic photo that was published on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. The woman who was photographed, Sharbat Gula, was pulled out of class without her consent or parental consent by the photographer, a white male, who took her to a nondescript location, posed her, and photographed her. What that photo is most known for is the fear in her eyes. When you read interviews with her in recent years, she talks about how that one photograph derailed her life while giving the photographer global recognition. What you see is her genuine fear of a stranger. It truly blows my mind how we don't apply the same principles around consent in photography with those living in the Global South as we do with those living in the Global North.

Where do we go from here as social enterprises?

No one is perfect, this is a process and the purpose of conversations like this is to get us thinking about how we can reflect on the systems we operate in and address some of those issues aroun...

“Mission-driven products are often sold using some level of someone's trauma and it ultimately makes you feel like you're just being valued for your traumas and nothing else."

Language in Storytelling

Informed Consent

Consent in Photography

Where do we go from here as social enterprises?

No one is perfect, this is a process and the purpose of conversations like this is to get us thinking about how we can reflect on the systems we operate in and address some of those issues aroun...

Previous Episode

Episode 04: Tatiana Ordoñez on Colorism, Colonization, and Textiles of Colombia

“Craft has a lot to tell about a person’s country and identity.”

It is often said that you can learn a lot about the history of a community or culture through their textiles. However, that is only possible if those textiles have survived the human experience of war and conflict. In many countries, cultures have been erased by colonial homogenization or appropriated by selective extraction. During this episode, we explore the impact of Colonization on indigenous communities in Colombia, how the legacy of colonization continues to dictate social structures, and its impact on traditional art forms.

“The nostalgia of not knowing if I may be, a part of my ancestry is Muisca, I don’t know...we don’t see much culture left. Maybe some people have heritage of the Muisca people, but as a culture, it’s completely gone.”

In episode 4, I am joined by Tatiana Andrea Ordoñez Casallas of Zuahaza, a home textile studio based in Bogota, Colombia. Following an era of intense conflict, which continues to shape and affect Colombia today, Zuahaza seeks to participate in the peacemaking efforts to reunite and heal the country through art. Tatiana will be sharing her journey with rediscovering the rich history of her country, and how that has influenced the way she approaches her business.

The Single Narrative

Colombia is more than the single story you have heard time after time about drugs and war. As a society, we often feel this need, at least in the United States, to put people in a box. But that can be really dehumanizing. It rejects how within a country people have different experiences based on a variety of factors including region, religion, social economic status, and so much more.

“We have a lot of problems like a lot of other countries, but there is another story to tell.”

We also see this often in the social impact space, where we create these single stories of people from countries and sometimes even continents, erasing historical context and the rich heritage of the various communities that reside within any given country or continent. This single narrative then reinforces harmful stereotypes.

What does racism look like in Colombia?

“There is not an easy way to describe racism in Colombia, but is not just a matter of skin color, it is also a matter of wealth distribution. The poorest regions of our country are either majority black or majority indigenous. In parallel these happen to be regions that are most affected by guerrilla conflicts. With this long history of conflict fueled by the drug trade (which is another article for another time), we have become a separated people. We made fences. We hired security guards. We built walls around our neighborhoods, and in all this, we prolonged the separation and discrimination against our fellow black and indigenous Colombians.”

Colorism + Whiteness

The National Museum of African American History & Culture has an excellent article on their website exploring the concept of whiteness, which they thoughtfully define as the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared. In my understanding, this normalization then manifests itself in form of cultural hegemony, power dynamics, and racist power structures that have then been internalized by marginalized communities themselves. This makes whiteness something to strive for, often putting what is considered "global north" countries on a pedestal.

Unlike many of her peers who used education as an excuse to leave Colombia, Tatiana used the skills she built while studying textile design in the States to reconnect with her ancestral roots in Colombia. She moved back and began using her talents as a weaver to connect with other weavers and work to revive textile traditions lost to colonial destruction.

Resources + Links

Interested in reading some of the resources I reference during the episode? Check out these links:

[Resource Page] Whiteness by The National Museum of African American History & Culture
[Article] Black Lives Matter Movement: What does it look like in Colombia? by Tatiana Ordoñez
[Resource Page] Learn more about the Muisca civilization that was completely erased by Spanish colonizers in Colombia

Next Episode

Episode 06: Voluntourism, Mission Trips + Dismantling the Savior Complex

In Episode 06 of Art of Citizenry Podcast, Manpreet Kalra is joined by Neha Sharma, Lindsay Woodruff, and Austin Miller in a conversation deconstructing the complexities of doing good in an unequal world. They explore ways in which voluntourism, may it be faith based or not, is a manifestation of colonization, reinforced by power structures rooted in imperialism. Together, they break down what sustainable change looks like, dive into elements of the savior complex, and critically analyze ways in which do-good travel can be sustainable.

Exploring Guilt Trips

Why does helping people who live far away feel different than helping those who are closer to home? From mission trips to building homes in remote villages, at what point does volunteering abroad do more harm than good? Anu Taranath says it best in her book Beyond Guilt Trips when she writes:

"Our travels to culturally and economically different locations often turn into guilt trips precisely because we have little practice navigating the unequal power dynamics and different-than-me-ness we find. We're not always sure how to think or speak about the differences we notice, even though these differences might have fueled our desire to travel in the first place. Those of us with more privileges and social advantages, in particular, might be even less practiced in recognizing and saying aloud what it is we are noticing and feeling about identity, race, power, and hierarchy. Simmering in our guilt and discomforting feelings about systems we have not created but continue to participate in and perhaps benefit from does nothing for justice."

I recently spoke to a group of business school students about anti-racism and social impact. During the conversation, I noticed how most of them thought about addressing issues abroad when thinking about incorporating "social good" into their business models. This idea that those abroad are more in need of help than those living nearby stems from colonial power dynamics rooted in systemic racism.

Episode 6 comes out of an Instagram Live conversation I recently co-hosted with Neha Sharma, an embroidery artist who creates South Asian and social justice-inspired art with a background in economics and public health. During the live, we discussed how voluntourism is built on a white savior complex and how it truly isn't as altruistic as it seems, which sparked some interesting conversations with our listeners.

The Global North vs Global South

The term "Global South" is the new acceptable term used to describe "third-world or developing" countries. However, by nature, it implies a problematic top-down power structure to the way we approach difference on the global stage. In 1980, former German Chancellor Willy Brandt proposed the "Brandt Line" which is an imaginary line that divides the world map into the "Global North and "Global South" based on GDP per capita. The visual of the map is almost comical as it goes across the map and then loops down to include Australia and New Zealand.

When looking at the countries that make up the Global North, they are almost all countries that we historically consider to be "white" majority, ignoring indigenous communities on whose land we reside. Global South countries, on the other hand, are often tied to "people of color."

All too often, “do-good travelers” from the Global North travel to previously colonized countries in the Global South that are still struggling to rebuild as a result of years of extraction, which continues today in the form of capitalism and self-serving guilt trips. There's a lot to be gained that is oftentimes one sided and not two sided, keeping power in the hands of those who have it and taking advantage of those who don't.

Ask yourself: "Why are you coming into a community that are completely unfamiliar with, to a culture you have no ties to, and taking over whatever it is that they are doing? Any sort of initiative to improve a community needs to be led by that community." - Neha Sharma

Colonization, Mission Trips + Heropreneurship

"I went on a three month trip, and it was sort of exploratory to see if I'd want to work in Bangladesh. And I was very inexperienced...I was not in any way educationally prepared to offer anything that to Bangladesh, except Jesus." - Austin Miller

Colonization historically was built on the idea to conquer and convert. You conquer a country and then impose your understanding of religion, culture, and living. And we see these similar ideologies manifest in t...