Local Fibers : Local Futures | A Local Assembly

Aligned with the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion (UCRF), our goal is to create a space where a diverse group of individuals can connect to and discover their part in creating resilient communities and better business futures. This event will include a series of activities that are designed to provoke and capture collaborative discussions around the pressing issues related to fashion and clothing production and sustainability.

This event is fuelled by a new program, which brings together SFU and Emily Carr students to connect with and discover possibilities for a more sustainable local textile industry in BC. This program is a partnership between The Beedie School of Business and SIAT at SFU, as well as The Shumka Centre for Creative Entrepreneurship and Textile Adaptations Research Program (TARP) at Emily Carr University. This program is co-led by Emily Smith, Stephanie Ostler, and Helene Day Fraser.

Acknowledgements:

We would like to acknowledge that the land on which we will be gathering is the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

If you have any concerns about attending the event due to disabilities, please let us know. We will attach directions to the room location within Emily Carr that provides necessary disability services.

Privacy Note:

Please note that this event is a means to create a community-propelled action plan. Any ideas shared during these sessions will be shared with the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion to create a community-shared resource.

During the event, there will be a student media team taking video and photographs. If you would not wish to have your photo taken, our group will provide stickers on the event day to ensure the privacy of your identity in all media content. Without a sticker, upon reservation of a ticket, the attendee consents to the use of digital images (photos or video) or audio recordings taken during the research to be used for publication purposes.

UCRF Manifesto

Planetary systems are under threat. Fashion and clothing products and activities contribute to the destruction of these systems. They also contribute to the increasing disconnection between humans and Earth.

We, the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion, recognise that the response of the fashion sector to the intensifying ecological crisis has been – and continues to be – over-simplified, fragmented and obstructed by the growth logic of capitalist business models as they are currently realized and practiced. Further we recognize that uncritical research findings, duplication of research, reduction and misuse of scientific and technical knowledge reinforces and speeds up this over-simplified condition in the fashion industry.

It is our view that concerned fashion and clothing researchers can no longer remain uninvolved or complacent and that as researchers, we need to conduct ourselves in new ways. We call on fashion researchers to unite for concerted action and leadership over the use of scientific and artistic knowledge that is more relevant to and commensurate with the multiple crises we face. For us this action requires both that something fundamental is disrupted and something significantly different is offered. We are committed to examining and accelerating the uptake of diverse ‘other ways’ in the fashion sector.

The Union of Concerned Researchers proposes to:

1. Create an ‘activist knowledge ecology’, that is, to develop a system of knowledge about fashion sustainability that is concerned with how knowledge is organised and shared as well as the data points themselves, and to direct such a system purposefully towards fostering change;
2. Advocate for whole systems and paradigm change, beyond current norms and business-as-usual. This includes rejecting overly-cautious economic, legislative and policy frameworks;
3. Diversify the voices within fashion and sustainability discourse, to reflect multiple perspectives beyond the dominant business approaches presented, including but not limited to the global south and indigenous communities;
4. Express our determined opposition to ill-advised and destructive fashion projects;
5. Formulate visions—and corresponding research practices—that allow for the possibility of enacting new relationships between humans and Earth in the context of fashion;
6. Take a leadership role in debating existing and new ideas and creating action around fashion-sustainability themes, especially in areas where the generation of new knowledge is of actual or potential significance;
7. Devise means for turning research applications towards the underlying root causes of pressing environmental and social problems, including but not limited to climate change, wealth inequality, biodiversity loss, and plastic pollution;
8. Organise, when determined desirable and feasible, fashion researchers to translate radical step change into effective political, and other, action;
9. Review and revise, when deemed necessary, this manifesto.