Regimes of Ethical Value? Landscape, Race and Representation in the Canadian Diamond Industry

Abstract

Canadian diamonds are marketed as “ethical” alternatives to notorious “blood diamonds”. This paper analyzes the specific matrices through which ethical consumption as a discourse is being mobilized to sell diamonds. I argue that consumption operates as a system of social signification in which consuming subjects are positioned as moral subjects. Moreover, I argue that historically accumulated symbolic power, in the form of imagined geographies of benevolent colonialism in the Canadian North versus the exploitation of “dark” Africa, pristine, “white” northern landscapes, modernization via commodity production, and national identity, creates the very field of meaning within which the consuming subject is positioned. The ethicalization of Canadian diamonds also has important normative implications both in terms of the cultural politics of ethical consumption and social and environmental justice in the Canadian North.

Contested Diamond Certification: Reconfiguring Global and National Interests in Zimbabwe’s Marange Fields

“…Approaching rights and fair trade from this alternative perspective suggests that the depoliticisation of "illegality" is an inherent problem that obscures the dispossession of small producers. In examining patterns of land reform in Zimbabwe years prior to the diamond rush, Andreasson (2006) This analysis adds to growing skepticism among geographers when contemplating the power of a "conflict-free" brand to account for complex injustices in the mining sector and to critiques of "fair trade" movements for "fetishizing" while obfuscating capitalist commodity chains more broadly (Goodman, 2004;Schlosser, 2013, Schroeder, 2010. Klooster (2010) refers to the "fantasy" that neoliberal fair trade certification can promote "fair trade" while maintaining business as usual.…”

History, scale and the political ecology of ethical diamonds in Kugluktuk, Nunavut

“…I do not, however, share Jackson's normative assessment of ethical consumption. Rather, my approach it closer to Guthman's (2009), who characterizes ethical consumption as an example of commodity fetishism, and one that gains its influence by enabling the construction of the 'consuming self' as properly ethical (or not so ethical) (Goodman 2010;Schlosser 2013;Vander Kloet 2009). To understand this process, I draw on Hornborg's (2007) call to merge environmental history and political ecology perspectives.…”

“…Downstream actors, specifically jewelry manufacturers and retailers, do often make explicit reference to conflict diamonds, and rely on a certification program run by the Government of the Northwest Territories; on donations of a percentage of proceeds to development related charities; or on the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme in order to claim their product as 'fair trade' alternatives. Such advertisements are effective because they position the consumer against dual spatial imaginaries, one within Canada, and the other in contrast to Africa (Schlosser 2013). The 'ethics' in ethical consumption here can be seen as a 'technique of the self' for the consumer, rather than as a guide for their purchasing options.…”

“…Diamonds from the Ekati, Diavik and Snap Lake mines are first shipped to Yellowknife where they are evaluated for royalty purposes, before being shipped elsewhere. Yellowknife is also where several government and private sector schemes to certify diamonds as Canadian take place, and these schemes are explained in more detail in a previous article (Schlosser 2013).…”

Problems of abstraction and extraction in cultural geography research: implications for fieldwork in Arctic North America

“…1 In short, I ran a series of focus groups in the Inuit village of Kugluktuk, Nunavut, in 2011, as part of a project to triangulate the history and practices of the global diamond industry, their construction of Canadian diamonds as "ethical" alternatives to African diamonds vis-à-vis images of polar bears, ice bergs, snowy white landscapes, maple leaves, etc., and the reaction to the above by residents of Kugluktuk, which exists about 425 km down the Coppermine River from three of Canada's four diamond mines. This research, buttressed by semistructured interviews and archival research, has been published elsewhere (Schlosser 2013a(Schlosser , 2013b. Focus groups have a number of advantages in such a context, especially their ability to facilitate intragroup communication (Litosseliti 2003).…”