Forum 2017-18 Fairphone

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1. Anais Vecino Tendero

   #1 00:43, Wed 31 Jan 2018

   I saw this and thought it would interesting in regards to todays class!

   https://shop.fairphone.com/en/

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2. Nicholas Lawrence Staff English

   #2 18:01, Sat 3 Feb 2018

   Thanks for this, Anais. From a political-ecological standpoint, it's worth pointing out that while seeking out fairer alternatives to the likes of Apple is important, it may be better to hang on to whatever phone you have for as long as possible rather than upgrade. This is, of course, made difficult by the planned (and unplanned) obsolescence characterising all phones today, including the Fairphone:

   http://www.alphr.com/mobile-phones/1006414/fairphone-1-never-had-a-fair-fight-sustainability-and-smartphones-just-dont

   More fundamentally, though, a consumerist solution to the problem of the smartphone has its limits. It still means buying more stuff, with all the exploitation and pollution that a growth-directed economy implies; there's the question, too, of whether it's possible to survive as an ethical product in a market that continues to depend on cheap labour and cheap nature:

   http://www.ericlee.info/blog/?p=819

   Wrestling with these issues offers no easy answers. It does, however, point up how systemic the problems highlighted by Daisey's monologue really are.

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