Fair Trade Jewelry

“When I hear ‘jewelry industry,’ I can’t help but think of its dark underside…the way it inflames ethnic conflict, flouts borders, fuels crime.” — John Kiess

After being dismissed for raising the issue of conflict diamonds by a local jeweler, John called me to get information about how he could purchase an ethical diamond from an ethical jeweler. After talking, I realized he is representative of our demographic. He agreed to this interview by email.

FJ: First, let’s start with who you are and what you are involved with at this time in your life. Feel free to go into the details.

John: I am currently a PhD student at Duke University. My current studies include solving some of the problems inherent in developing countries.

FJ: When we talked on the phone, we discussed your experiences in a jewelry store that led you to search on-line for ethically sourced jewelry. What exactly happened?

John: I was aware that there were ethically sourced jewelry outlets online, and knew I would probably end up using one of these, but was curious about the conflict-diamond policies of some of the more commercial retailers. I also wanted to see some diamonds up close and get a sense for different dimensions and cuts.

I stopped at several different stores. When I asked one retailer about their conflict-free policy, the salesperson pretty much dismissed the question, saying, “I know with that movie [Blood Diamond] and the reports about conflict diamonds people are concerned about this issue, but the truth is that those conflicts happened several years ago and are no longer an issue. You don’t need to worry about it.”

I was really surprised.

I expected a much more elaborate position, and some acknowledgment of the many conflicts over resources that are ongoing (such as in East Congo), or the holes in the Kimberly Process, but the whole issue was brushed aside. I was also struck by the way in which the clerk dismissed the question, like it was some trivial gossip drummed up by Hollywood, something any informed insider would know is not really a problem.

The salesperson then asked what kind of diamond my girlfriend and I were looking for, and I said that what we really wanted was a diamond with some character, with some sort of story or narrative. I got another furrowed brow. “A story?” the clerk asked. He then began to go into the four C’s, and I said, “No, I see the diamond, and it’s beautiful, but I was hoping you could tell me a little bit more about the diamond itself, you know, where it’s from, maybe a little bit about the community that mined it, the region and the environment, how it got here?” The clerk then corrected me, “Oh, no, that’s impossible. No one knows where they come from. They go through so many different people that by the time it gets here, it’s impossible to say where it’s been or where it’s from.”

Now I was confused – the clerk reassured me a minute ago that the diamond was conflict-free, but now he was saying that it’s impossible to say where diamonds come from or who they pass through. We were both scratching our heads.

Then the clerk lit up: “I’ve got a diamond with a story!” Up came the $7,500 premium series diamond, which apparently had thirty-something more aspects than the usual 56 and can only be cut by master craftsmen. It was beautiful, to be sure, but didn’t really give me more details about the diamond’s history. Then the clerk summed it all up for me: “Remember – the story that really matters is the one you’ll tell your friends, about how you asked her to marry you. That’s the real story.”

And that’s what sent me back online.

FJ: When someone says, “jewelry industry,” what do you think of? How did this experience, if at all, change your impression of the jewelry industry as a whole?

John: When I hear ‘jewelry industry’ I can’t help but think of its dark underside – the way it inflames ethnic conflict, flouts borders, fuels crime. I also think of its central place in a global consumer culture, its iconic role in the co-modification process, and how the very persistence of the industry seems to depend upon mystification, fetish, and illusion. I can’t help but think of how the very tradition of giving a diamond engagement ring was invented through some clever advertising ploy (which, as you can see, has worked well on me!). But then again, maybe there’s something to that: these gems are extraordinarily beautiful and there isn’t a reason why they necessarily have to epitomize any of these destructive patterns, or why natural resources cannot build up, rather than tear down, human communities. I think these resources represent an extraordinary opportunity to connect good earth practices to good human practices, and ethically grow local economies.

If anything, my recent experiences have confirmed for me that the ground upon which the jewelry industry stands is awfully shaky, and is more unstable than one might think. I was not left with the impression that things have been thought out all that well, or that things can’t change.

FJ: If you had some advice to give to the jewelry industry, what would it be?

John: For me, it seems like the industry is settling for so much less than it could possibly be. It is dealing in fragments of stories when it could be dealing in whole narratives. People want to be part of stories; we’re tired of being disconnected, of not knowing where anything we consume comes from, of not knowing who makes our life possible. For the dealer above, the story only began when the consumer walked in the door. But the real story, the true and interesting story begins so much earlier, doesn’t it? Why not make that story, that history, visible? Why not celebrate the communities, places and networks that invest themselves in the diamond, that are mediated to us through the diamond? Why reduce the extraordinary complexity of a gem to a mere commodity when it actually contains layers of people’s labor, hopes, and struggles? The industry is running on a fragment of the story.

For me, what is valuable about a diamond is that it represents a concrete way to relate to, and support, people to whom I might not otherwise find myself related. That is what makes me want to buy a diamond, that’s what makes it precious to me, and why it can be a fitting symbol of lifelong love. Incorporating the wider story would, I think, correct a good deal of the narcissism that accompanies much of what constitutes romance in America, reminding us of the real purpose of love: not ourselves, but those our love allows us to serve better. For me, the real allure, the real value of jewelry is the potential role it can play in grounding and sustaining a vast network of relationships. That’s genuine exchange. That’s real value. That, I think, is the difference between a commodity and a gift.

Of course, if mining conditions aren’t just and these minerals are funding wars, you’ve got no story to tell, or sell, and you’re left trying to cover it up with a fabricated story. I think the industry’s potential to flourish depends on the justice of the industry. The two are inextricably linked.

FJ: Some people might say that there are very few people who hold your views. Tell me about your greater community. Are there a lot of people like you out there?

John: I think there are a lot of people who hold these kinds of views. I am articulating a desire for some basic things: connection, truth, reciprocity. I’d like to think we’re all fans of those kinds of things, and that the different cultural and religious traditions of which we are members call us to hold those things dear. The problem is that we tend to limit our imagination of what commercial exchange might be to the prevailing practice. Why can’t our commercial exchanges be about building community and joining an interesting story? What else could be more important?

Speaking more specifically, I represent a younger generation who is fired up about the possibilities of what exchange can be about, a generation tired of compartmentalizing ethics, politics, culture and economics. For us, economists have no monopoly on the language of exchange, and we don’t buy into clean distinctions between the material, spiritual, or cultural. Ideas, resources, language, goods, services, and various kinds of knowledges all make up one economy.

I hear this coming from undergraduate and graduate students, seminarians, writers, and artists, but also from my friends who are service employees, daycare workers, teachers, landscapers and small business owners. I think this yearning for connection is something stirring up a lot of folks, and is not something that is exotic or radical. No one wants it to be radical. We want the notion of something ‘fairly-traded’ to be so obvious that we no longer need the adjective – that it becomes something we can take for granted, something that’s just “normal”.

FJ: How much of your shopping is determined by your ecological and social concerns?

John: Not enough. My friends and I like to know where our food or clothes come from and try to be as conscientious as we can, but the more one tries, the more one discovers his or her complicity in a messy world. The one thing I’d stress is that socially-concerned consumption is as much a question of supply as demand. My sense is that there is a hunger out there for a lot of fair-trade goods, but many industries are slow to supply. There’s no ethically-sourced jewelry shop in our local town, but a lot of us wish there was. I went out to the mall because I wanted to see a diamond up close – you can’t do that on the internet.

FJ: How much, on a percentage basis, would you pay for a product that is fairly traded over a product that is not?

John: I think that what’s at stake in assessing the worth of fair-trade goods is learning to understand value differently. For me, exchange value is an awfully misleading measure of worth, as the things that seem to matter most are usually either worth-less or price-less.

So I think it’s important that our understanding of value expand to include those often overlooked and non-priced aspects of goods such as how much it builds up the community that produced it, or how much it improves the quality and visibility of the relationship between producer and consumer. The more the fair-trade economy can guarantee the improved livelihood of producers, and increase the quality of the interaction between producers and consumers, I think the more valuable fair-trade goods become, and the more I am willing to pay.

FJ: How do I reach the demographic of people like you to let them know about ethically sourced jewelry?

John: I think media such as this one are great, and your resources have been a tremendous help to me as I’ve tried to find my way through this confusing industry. I imagine the demographic will be reached the same way the industry becomes more ethical – that is, interpersonally, locally, and slowly. In the short time that I’ve spent talking to dealers who have a passion for ethically-sourced jewelry, I’ve been struck by the quality of the conversations: it doesn’t feel like a commercial interaction, it feels more like the start of a friendship. I get a sense that more is at stake in these conversations than a purchase. So I think reaching this demographic is really connected to building community and friendship.

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