SuitabookDiamonds
Armin Greder
- Reading
- Read it with time to pause during the wordless spreads, then discuss the emotional effect of the images before using the afterwords to explore context. A calm adult presence may help with the nightmare sequence.
- Themes
- Consumer responsibility: Carolina’s questions about her mother’s earrings lead into the diamond’s journey from mine to boutique. The book presents unexamined luxury consumption and the distance from production as morally troubling.
- Labour exploitation and human rights: The wordless sequence depicts miners extracting diamonds while being brutalised, followed by movement through corrupt intermediaries. Harm to workers and the chain enabling it are presented as oppressive rather than ordinary or acceptable.
- Inequality and domestic service: Amina works in a wealthy home and does not own diamonds, although the child associates diamonds with Africa and asks about her. The book presents competing or mixed signals about this.
- Worth knowing
- The central concern is not only mining but the wider chain of exchange, including armed groups, middlemen, wealthy purchasers and domestic service. The book presents this system as troubling, while the full nuances of its argument remain unclear.