Reading Poverty Through Fairtrade: (2) Visual positioning of the poor & the rich

In his thought provoking collection of visual essays Ways of Seeing, John Berger observes that “the painted poor” often smile.

“These people belong to the poor. The poor can be seen in the street outside or in the countryside. Pictures of the poor inside the house, however, are reassuring. Here the painted poor smile as they offer… They smile at the better-off… Such pictures assert two things: that the poor are happy, and that the better-off are a source of hope for the world.” [12]

And if we look at the poor as portrayed in the Fairtrade visual language, we will find striking similarity between them and the painted poor Berger mentioned. In fact, they do not only exist in Fairtrade materials, a quick search on the internet will land us much more images of the poor with their warming smiles.

It is worth noting that Berger has divided them into two categories: the poor “in the street outside or in the countryside” (poor people in real); and the poor “inside the house”, “the painted poor” (i.e., the recreated poor, the poor as we see them, or prefer to see them). As mentioned in Chapter 1, Jaffe suggest putting a face on the Fairtrade products is an attempt to simulate the traditional, seller-and-buyer face-to-face relationship. However, same as their painting counterpart, the poor appearing on any Fairtrade products or literature are not real. They are a “reproduction”. While we may look at a skinny model with spotless skin on the cover of a glossy magazine and laugh at its obvious retouching, the chasm between the reproduced poor and the reality appears to go much unnoticed and rarely visited. To be more precise, a new reality has been constructed based on our quick glimpses of these images, which carries our angle of view as early as a scene is picked/posed for reproduction. While reality is complicated and messy, these images tell messages that are straightforward, easy to digest.

If 10 years ago the participants in Catherine Scott’s survey found images of the poor on the package of their tea repulsive (say, a starving African boy so skinny that there is almost nothing left on him except an enormous head plus a protruding belly), now they are accepting them as a comfortable confirmation of what Fairtrade have helped the poor to achieve (they are now smiling). A smile here does not just indicate a change in the face expression. It is meant to act as a testimony of a change in these people’s lives, a testimony of what we the consumers have contributed and will continue to contribute by choosing Fairtrade. Though from the same images it is clear that the living standard “out there” is still shockingly low, yet when coupled with a smile, the situation somehow feels much more acceptable, even beautiful for its simplicity (happy poverty).

However, are the poor really so happy being poor?

Perhaps a quick comparison between how the poor and the rich have always been portrayed, paintings then and adverts now, can lead us to a better understanding in the mindset behind the positioning of these two classes and subsequently the interpretation of the world.

The poor seen as ingratiating?

The Fairtrade poor is not the kind of poor who just sit there and wait for our help, just like Harriet Lamb said, they are the hardworking types, they are not the alms-receiving” but the “selling poor”. While recreated “selling poor” in traditional European art were mainly sold within European, to people from middle and upper class, the Fairtrade “selling poor” are sold to the foreign, chiefly Western, market. Now let us look at their face expressions and postures.

They gaze upward (expecting? ingratiating?). They look sideway (calculating?). They smile (sometimes more a grin, which shows their teeth) and in their hands are what they have on offer. These can be merchandises or entertainment in the case of a street performer, jester and comedian. They smile to the prospect of a sale. Sometimes we can find them in the middle of actions, such as a fight, a game or a tavern drinking scene. They can be very animated. These are the people who can allow their emotions to run loose. These are also the people we do not look up to for high morality.

Contrary to the poor, the portrayed rich have a distant look on their faces. They sit or stand still. Either themselves or their close family members have commissioned the portraits. They are consciously posing for the paintings. Thus, they are not there “to be painted”, “to be recreated”, “to be interpreted”. Rather, they are the active participants in this act of painting/recreation. Their face expressions solemn, their emotions controlled, they rarely smile but if they do, it is almost unnoticeable. We are not going to see their teeth. Their gaze authoritative, disinterested, they fix their eyes at the painters but at the same time look beyond them towards their expected, future spectators. Even after so many years, they still hold the initiative of our conversations with them. If the painted poor look at us and plead, the painted rich command our submission, admiration.

Now let us look at this image of a Fairtrade coffee farmer, and compare it to that of a British farmer.

The image on the left is from a paper that is supposed to demonstrate the positive impact of Fairtrade on coffee growers. Yet the photographer has taken an absolutely top-down angle.

The poor producer looks up at the camera (and also at us), he grins (showing his teeth), in his hands are what he has on offer. His face is blurred. What the photographer was shooting was not him but the raw coffee cherries (in sharp focus). The producer, with a shallow depth of field, is a background for this product.

The Western farmer, on the other hand, look young and vigorous. He does not please. He does not even bother to smile. The two lips pursed into a curve so slight that it only suggests a smile, barely noticeable, just a touch of friendliness which will not overshadow the more prominent theme of this image – his pride. He looks straight at us with confidence and dignity. The cameraman surely have not employed a top-down angle here. We wonder if his lens was actually pointing slightly up.

We (the spectators), following the angle of the camera lens to “look up to” or “look down on” these two farmers of different backgrounds and geographies.

The poor seen as virtuous and respectable?

Dating back to 18th and 19th century, there was a fashion of painting the poor in an idyllic manner. The “respectable, virtuous poor” as the Victorians called them. Such paintings see the poor contented with what they have, however modest. They are faithful, hardworking, thrifty, making the best out of whatever life has given them. Sometimes you can get an atmosphere of nobility, dignity, even heroism as the poor absolved themselves in work. They look so peaceful that they seem dissolving into their beautiful pastoral backgrounds, their faces obscured.

The poor are indeed dissolving into the background. To understand this better, we can look at the difference in relationship between the rich and their outdoor environments and that of the poor. The portrayed rich, when outdoor, still remain as the chief subject of the painting. The landscape behind them is a background. It can be their private estates, personal gardens. It is there to supplement their existence. Subject and its surrounding, the two do not merge. The rich are enjoying the nature. But they themselves are not part of it.

On the contrary, the proportion of the poor in a landscape is much smaller. They are not posing for a painting but engaging in their work. They and together with the cloths they wear, the tasks they are performing, the tools they use, the output they produce (milk, fruits, vegetable, wheat, washed cloths, ironed cloths…), the background they are sitting in (a rustic cottage, a humble dinner, a lively market place, a misty field at sunset), all come together to contribute to a tranquil, harmonic pastoral view. It is this pastoral view which the painters want to capture. The poor are there to supplement the countryside’s or the nature’s existence. They are “part of the outdoor scene”, “part of the landscape”. They are “a view”. This probably explains why a lot of them do not have a clear face. Facial features and expressions always speak out characters and emotions. If the selling poor are there to show their cunningness or ingratiation, the poor in a landscape help to convey a sense of humbleness and tranquility, soothing to the eyes of the complicated rich, especially if they live in the cities.

A Cornfield by Peter de Wint (above) is a good a example. The autumnal harvesting scene communicates a peaceful, almost utopian atmosphere. However, as V&A museum (London) describes, the painter “…‘romanticizes’ his scenes of hard labour… Harvesting can never have been as idyllic…”

Striking similarity can be found in Fairtrade’s portrayal of harmonious agricultural lives. However, just like the above comment from the V&A museum, the reality of farming, especially when not modernised, can never be as joyous and beautiful.

Who buy these images?

Perhaps it is less about who are in these images, but for whom these images are intended. Who consume them?

In the past, those who could afford to buy and enjoy the painted peasntry were not the painted peasants themselves. Today, majority of Fairtrade products are consumed in the West. Idyllic genre pieces are said to be so popular especially amongst the British aristocrats that one of their painters Pieter Angillis (1685 – 1734) was able to afford a life in the very expensive artists’ colony in Covert Garden, London [13]. Fairtrade’s sales in the UK leaps approximately by 40% annually in the past years (less is recorded between 2009 – 2010 due to recession).

Just as “the rich” in the past were the consumers of both their own portraits and the paintings of the poor, the people in the developed world are the target audience/consumers of both the images of themselves (or what our lives are/can be) and the images of the contemporary world poor (or what their lives are/supposed to be).

In the context of buying to demonstrate trade justice, or buying to save someone’s lives, the consumers are not only buying the products but also the poverty, impotency and hopelessness of these people, and a good feeling that we are supporting them. The portrayed poor, whether now or in the past, do not only supply their products and labour, but also their images and stories (true or not) to be consumed. They are commodified. When consumers are willing to pay a bit more because of this added layer of meaning (a charitable act), such marketing strategy succeeds.

Not to mention these images also illustrate our world is as segregated as before. The painted poor farm, sew, clean or sell, while the rich think, explore, invent, command and conquer. Globalisation (as it is interpreted and executed by the world’s leading powers) has just helped to re-inforce such social segregation and bring it to a much wider global scale. Who should be doing what has always been well designed: some grow and export; some manufacture and assemble; some are destined to be responsible for the business and financial strategies, and consumption. The hypocritical thing is that, while the First World is monopolising the higher level planning and production (and thus a much chunkier profit share), they tend to lament about their “complicated” and “corrupted” industrialised lives and glorify the “simplicity” and “beauty” in poverty and hard labour.

When we buy the certified products we are better connected to those who produce for us, so the Fair Trade organisations and businesses say. Yet the feel of the cream or bath salt on our skin must be very different from the scorching sun on the skin of these three workers captured in the Akoma website. Pastoral scene can be so romantic because we do not need to get involved in it. We can try it “for fun” during our eco-tours but we are well aware that this is not our lives. Soothing and flattering as they are, the recreated (by photography or illustration) world poor are welcome to enter our shopping baskets just like the painted poor were welcome to enter the rich men’s houses. While the painted poor would have been mounted to the wall, the recreated world poor would sit quietly, submissively in our cupboards, or beside our toasters. Recreation is embraced because it is our recreation. The poor as a real person, however, can only be “in the street outside or in the countryside”, as John Berger poignantly points out. For the local poor we have gates, locks and guards. For the world poor we have a hostile border control and blatantly demeaning portrayal of immigrants across political discussions and media.

Hard work, really so lovable?

A number of documentaries made by WORLDwrite (UK) and an interview with a researcher from Ghana (recorded in Chapter 5) can tell us that hard labour is nothing but hard labour. Out of the tradition in romanticising poverty, there were painters who did seek to reveal a more realistic face of toil. Such as The Boatmen on the Volga (1870–73) by Ilya Repin. We see no smile, no contentment, no calmness. The workers’ faces are worn out, they bodies look as if about to be crushed by the weight of the barge. On the far right there is a modernised (steam?) ship, which makes the reality even crueler and inhumane because, as Andrew Graham-Dixon points out [14], modernised equipment did exist then. So why did these workers still need to pull the barge with their fragile bodies? Why couldn’t such back-broken task be avoided? And if machinery has already been an option for the workers back in Repin’s time, surely this should also be an option for the world’s commodity producers now, when the world is over a century more advanced. Yet we still see them weeding, mixing, harvesting, bending, sorting with just their hands in a lot of Fairtrade materials. And primitive tools such as machetes, hoes and cutlass are used as attractive visual elements on product packaging to appeal to Western shoppers. A country well developed and self-sustainable enough so its farmers can choose between mechanised or organic way of farming out of his own preference is one thing. Being too poor to have any choice but to work to meet up to the tastes of the West just so your produce can be shipped to Fairtrade or non-Fairtrade market is another. The cocoa farmers in Ghana below shows what organic farming really means. And the far-from-happy face when people are doing their work, or when they are disturbed by the cameras.

Consumers and Producers: the saviour and the to-be-saved?

In recent years we can see the addition of ethical values to brands and products gaining popularity amongst the consumers and the marketers. Beyond Fairtrade, we see companies developing their own labels such as Starbucks’ Shared Planet™. Obviously, injection of such extra layer of meaning to the products does help to boost the brand’s image and more importantly, its sales profit. For instance, the US-based Rainforest Alliance label is said to have helped Chiquita to greenwash the company’s gritty history. “I believe in fair trade for fair trade’s sale,” Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury’s said so. [15] Borrowing a phrase from Naomi Klein, are we witnessing another wave of “Gold Rush to Poverty” [16]? Poor people, poor as they are, appear to be everlastingly profitable. Their resources, labour, images and stories, can all be extracted, manipulated, packaged and sold. We used to feel guilty for consumerism. But what if someone tells us we are actually giving lives? for instance, by chewing a pack of dried tropical fruits, by indulging ourselves with a bar of nutty chocolate, by soaking our exhausted bodies into a hot bath incensed with aromatic oil…? As the ethical branding strategy continues to evolve, more and more we see that every act the rich do, however minor, can be turned into a glorious mission.

According to Jaffee’s detailed study of Fair Trade’s impact in Oaxaco, Mexico (Brewing Justice, 2007), Fair Trade is not a movement solely stemmed from and steered by the wealthy developed world, it is more about the participation of both the poor and the rich. Indeed the poor nations have so far contributed a lot, as discussed in Chapter 1, with the fact that producers need to pay to be certified, Fairtrade is no more than an alternative market they can choose to sell to. It is not some kindhearted rich descending upon them to bring them hope.

Yet here in the developed world, this isn’t the picture we get from Fairtrade’s organisations, we are heroic, evangelic. In the UK, it is also about UK leading the world (as panellists again and again emphasised during this year’s Supporter Conference). Such mindset manifests in Fairtrade’s/Fairtrade’s advocate’s visual language. The question is, if we position ourselves so high, what about our counterpart, the “to-be-helped”, the “to-be-saved”?

Will such angle of view foster a distorted relationship? Michael Laloё, the Head of Creative Services from Fairtrade Foundation says that their intention is just to reward their supporters. De Roy, the one on the “to-be-saved” side, does not seem to see these images being so “neutral”:

“The pictures showing women and fair trade heroes are a reflection of (a) deep-seated deception planted in the minds of the people in the West that something good is being done for the poor farmers. These people don’t know the story of the farmers neither do they understand the reality, let alone to tell it. These so-called heroes and influential women have not seen or held machetes, hoes or cutlasses in their lives before. They cannot be change makers…”

Voices such as this one rarely reaches us. This is hardly something we would like to hear. Yet when we analyse Fairtrade’s (and similar charities’) imagery and try to dissect the imbalance of power and racial discrimination that are deeply embedded in them, we need to be aware of the fact that Fairtrade is not the sole creator and engineer of these visual messages, those who have drafted the visual landscape within Fairtrade are one of us. They are from this very society and carry with them the biases and values from this society. And the fact that these images could be successfully sold back to us, that we not only buy them but enjoy them, not only enjoy them but cheer at them, not only cheer at them but also try to spread them – all signify our share in these biases and values, however self-deceptive, self-flattering. We, with our privileged global status and comparative wealth, see ourselves as the “life-savers”.

In response to my question, De Roy agreed that such images are a reflection on a long established colonial relationship that has never changed.

[12] Berger, John (1972, p.98 of the 2008 edition), Ways of Seeing, London: Penguin

[13] From art description of The vegetable seller (Pieter Angillis, 1724), V&A Museum, London

[14] The art of Russia: Roads to Revolution (BBC 4, 2010)

[15] Marketing Week (May 2010)

[16] Klein, Naomi (2000, p.74 of the 2010 edition), No Logo, London: Fourth Estate

** Report for author’s Master Degree in Graphic Branding & Identity, London College of Communications, 2010. Updated in 2011 for Web Publication.

** Feature image from iStockphoto.