Eric Field | University of Virginia (original) (raw)
Papers by Eric Field
Virginia Quarterly Review, 2014
A cotton has evolved into one crop among many for Mississippi Delta farmers, it remains a central... more A cotton has evolved into one crop among many for Mississippi Delta farmers, it remains a central force in the vast, tangled, global textiles market— a market that includes producer/retailers like the United States, pure retail markets like the European Union, and the ligament between them: garment manufacturers like China and India, both of which also grow significant portions of the global cotton supply. This international supply chain is comparatively new. Through the midtwentieth century, more than half of American cotton was used in domestic mills and factories, where workers carded, combed, spun, and sewed the raw fiber into yarn, cloth, and garments. The next chapter of the US textile industry is familiar by now: The prospect of lower labor costs abroad and an efficient global transportation system encouraged companies to manufacture textiles and clothing elsewhere. In 1948, there were 1.3 million workers in the US textile-mill industry; by 2012, that number had fallen to 233,000. Yet even as the creation of the finished product disappeared from the US economy, demand for American cotton in the global textile sector has only grown: Exports’ share of domestic cotton production has expanded from 32 percent in 1948 to 74 percent in 2012. About half of all American cotton goes to China, where massive, automated machinery spins and weaves it into bolts of cloth that are then sent to factories that assemble clothing. But wages in China have steadily risen over the past decade, and manufacturers, in the pursuit of lower costs and wider margins, have found cheaper labor elsewhere in South Asia. Enter Bangladesh, a country whose garment exports have skyrocketed from a mere 6.4millionin1983to6.4 million in 1983 to 6.4millionin1983to21.5 billion in 2012. Bangladesh’s readymade garment (RMG) industry has been the sole force behind the country’s rapid industrialization, shifting its economy away from agriculture and toward manufacturing and drawing a rural population into the churning city of Dhaka. Most garment workers there face working conditions comparable to those of American sweatshops in the 1910s and have struggled to gain a minimum wage of $68 per month. After two weeks of saving every cent, a worker could afford the retail price of a Gap Tshirt. Demand for low prices on the consumer side leads retailers to seek low production costs, but the human cost only rises: In 2013, more than 1,100 garment workers died in Bangladeshi factories. The Bangladesh RMG industry gets most of its cotton from India and Uzbekistan, countries that trail the US in terms of sheer cotton exports but whose proximity makes for cheaper and easier trade. But while the likelihood of an American farmer’s cotton ending up in Bangladesh is low, a piece of clothing made in a Bangladeshi factory has a one in four chance of ending up in the US and a 50 percent chance of ending up in the European Union. In other words, on the supply side, American cotton and Dhaka factories are cousins several steps removed. In terms of demand, the relationship between Western retailers— and consumers— and the RMG industry is more directly causal. Including the Pacific Ocean, 8,500 miles lie between Yazoo City and Dhaka— but that distance vanishes between here and any local mall. —Matthew MacFarland R E P O R T I N G
Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993, the Horyuji temple complex includes some of the ... more Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993, the Horyuji temple complex includes some of the oldest and largest surviving wooden buildings in the world. The original Horyuji temple was built between 601 and 607 by Prince Regent Shotoku (573?-622), one of Japan's best-known cultural heroes. The construction of the temple marked the introduction of Buddhism and Buddhist art and architecture to Japan from China, by way of the Korean peninsula, as promoted by Prince Shotoku. After a fire in 670 that destroyed the site, the temple was rebuilt and enlarged. Horyuji became one of Japan's leading centers of Buddhist scholarship as well as a focus for the cult of its founder, Prince Shotoku. This volume of essays originate from the "The Dawn of East Asian International Buddhist Art and Architecture: Horyuji (Temple of the Exalted Law) in Its Contexts" symposium held at the University of Virginia in October 2005. Covering the disciplines of archaeology, architecture, arc...
Virginia Quarterly Review, 2014
A cotton has evolved into one crop among many for Mississippi Delta farmers, it remains a central... more A cotton has evolved into one crop among many for Mississippi Delta farmers, it remains a central force in the vast, tangled, global textiles market— a market that includes producer/retailers like the United States, pure retail markets like the European Union, and the ligament between them: garment manufacturers like China and India, both of which also grow significant portions of the global cotton supply. This international supply chain is comparatively new. Through the midtwentieth century, more than half of American cotton was used in domestic mills and factories, where workers carded, combed, spun, and sewed the raw fiber into yarn, cloth, and garments. The next chapter of the US textile industry is familiar by now: The prospect of lower labor costs abroad and an efficient global transportation system encouraged companies to manufacture textiles and clothing elsewhere. In 1948, there were 1.3 million workers in the US textile-mill industry; by 2012, that number had fallen to 233,000. Yet even as the creation of the finished product disappeared from the US economy, demand for American cotton in the global textile sector has only grown: Exports’ share of domestic cotton production has expanded from 32 percent in 1948 to 74 percent in 2012. About half of all American cotton goes to China, where massive, automated machinery spins and weaves it into bolts of cloth that are then sent to factories that assemble clothing. But wages in China have steadily risen over the past decade, and manufacturers, in the pursuit of lower costs and wider margins, have found cheaper labor elsewhere in South Asia. Enter Bangladesh, a country whose garment exports have skyrocketed from a mere 6.4millionin1983to6.4 million in 1983 to 6.4millionin1983to21.5 billion in 2012. Bangladesh’s readymade garment (RMG) industry has been the sole force behind the country’s rapid industrialization, shifting its economy away from agriculture and toward manufacturing and drawing a rural population into the churning city of Dhaka. Most garment workers there face working conditions comparable to those of American sweatshops in the 1910s and have struggled to gain a minimum wage of $68 per month. After two weeks of saving every cent, a worker could afford the retail price of a Gap Tshirt. Demand for low prices on the consumer side leads retailers to seek low production costs, but the human cost only rises: In 2013, more than 1,100 garment workers died in Bangladeshi factories. The Bangladesh RMG industry gets most of its cotton from India and Uzbekistan, countries that trail the US in terms of sheer cotton exports but whose proximity makes for cheaper and easier trade. But while the likelihood of an American farmer’s cotton ending up in Bangladesh is low, a piece of clothing made in a Bangladeshi factory has a one in four chance of ending up in the US and a 50 percent chance of ending up in the European Union. In other words, on the supply side, American cotton and Dhaka factories are cousins several steps removed. In terms of demand, the relationship between Western retailers— and consumers— and the RMG industry is more directly causal. Including the Pacific Ocean, 8,500 miles lie between Yazoo City and Dhaka— but that distance vanishes between here and any local mall. —Matthew MacFarland R E P O R T I N G
Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems - SenSys '10, 2010
Heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) is the largest source of residential energy consumption. ... more Heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) is the largest source of residential energy consumption. In this paper, we demonstrate how to use cheap and simple sensing technology to automatically sense occupancy and sleep patterns in a home, and how to use these patterns to save energy by automatically turning off the home's HVAC system. We call this approach the smart thermostat. We evaluate this approach by deploying sensors in 8 homes and comparing the expected energy usage of our algorithm against existing approaches. We demonstrate that our approach will achieve a 28% energy saving on average, at a cost of approximately $25 in sensors. In comparison, a commercially-available baseline approach that uses similar sensors saves only 6.8% energy on average, and actually increases energy consumption in 4 of the 8 households.
Virginia Quarterly Review, 2014
A cotton has evolved into one crop among many for Mississippi Delta farmers, it remains a central... more A cotton has evolved into one crop among many for Mississippi Delta farmers, it remains a central force in the vast, tangled, global textiles market— a market that includes producer/retailers like the United States, pure retail markets like the European Union, and the ligament between them: garment manufacturers like China and India, both of which also grow significant portions of the global cotton supply. This international supply chain is comparatively new. Through the midtwentieth century, more than half of American cotton was used in domestic mills and factories, where workers carded, combed, spun, and sewed the raw fiber into yarn, cloth, and garments. The next chapter of the US textile industry is familiar by now: The prospect of lower labor costs abroad and an efficient global transportation system encouraged companies to manufacture textiles and clothing elsewhere. In 1948, there were 1.3 million workers in the US textile-mill industry; by 2012, that number had fallen to 233,000. Yet even as the creation of the finished product disappeared from the US economy, demand for American cotton in the global textile sector has only grown: Exports’ share of domestic cotton production has expanded from 32 percent in 1948 to 74 percent in 2012. About half of all American cotton goes to China, where massive, automated machinery spins and weaves it into bolts of cloth that are then sent to factories that assemble clothing. But wages in China have steadily risen over the past decade, and manufacturers, in the pursuit of lower costs and wider margins, have found cheaper labor elsewhere in South Asia. Enter Bangladesh, a country whose garment exports have skyrocketed from a mere 6.4millionin1983to6.4 million in 1983 to 6.4millionin1983to21.5 billion in 2012. Bangladesh’s readymade garment (RMG) industry has been the sole force behind the country’s rapid industrialization, shifting its economy away from agriculture and toward manufacturing and drawing a rural population into the churning city of Dhaka. Most garment workers there face working conditions comparable to those of American sweatshops in the 1910s and have struggled to gain a minimum wage of $68 per month. After two weeks of saving every cent, a worker could afford the retail price of a Gap Tshirt. Demand for low prices on the consumer side leads retailers to seek low production costs, but the human cost only rises: In 2013, more than 1,100 garment workers died in Bangladeshi factories. The Bangladesh RMG industry gets most of its cotton from India and Uzbekistan, countries that trail the US in terms of sheer cotton exports but whose proximity makes for cheaper and easier trade. But while the likelihood of an American farmer’s cotton ending up in Bangladesh is low, a piece of clothing made in a Bangladeshi factory has a one in four chance of ending up in the US and a 50 percent chance of ending up in the European Union. In other words, on the supply side, American cotton and Dhaka factories are cousins several steps removed. In terms of demand, the relationship between Western retailers— and consumers— and the RMG industry is more directly causal. Including the Pacific Ocean, 8,500 miles lie between Yazoo City and Dhaka— but that distance vanishes between here and any local mall. —Matthew MacFarland R E P O R T I N G
Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993, the Horyuji temple complex includes some of the ... more Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993, the Horyuji temple complex includes some of the oldest and largest surviving wooden buildings in the world. The original Horyuji temple was built between 601 and 607 by Prince Regent Shotoku (573?-622), one of Japan's best-known cultural heroes. The construction of the temple marked the introduction of Buddhism and Buddhist art and architecture to Japan from China, by way of the Korean peninsula, as promoted by Prince Shotoku. After a fire in 670 that destroyed the site, the temple was rebuilt and enlarged. Horyuji became one of Japan's leading centers of Buddhist scholarship as well as a focus for the cult of its founder, Prince Shotoku. This volume of essays originate from the "The Dawn of East Asian International Buddhist Art and Architecture: Horyuji (Temple of the Exalted Law) in Its Contexts" symposium held at the University of Virginia in October 2005. Covering the disciplines of archaeology, architecture, arc...
Virginia Quarterly Review, 2014
A cotton has evolved into one crop among many for Mississippi Delta farmers, it remains a central... more A cotton has evolved into one crop among many for Mississippi Delta farmers, it remains a central force in the vast, tangled, global textiles market— a market that includes producer/retailers like the United States, pure retail markets like the European Union, and the ligament between them: garment manufacturers like China and India, both of which also grow significant portions of the global cotton supply. This international supply chain is comparatively new. Through the midtwentieth century, more than half of American cotton was used in domestic mills and factories, where workers carded, combed, spun, and sewed the raw fiber into yarn, cloth, and garments. The next chapter of the US textile industry is familiar by now: The prospect of lower labor costs abroad and an efficient global transportation system encouraged companies to manufacture textiles and clothing elsewhere. In 1948, there were 1.3 million workers in the US textile-mill industry; by 2012, that number had fallen to 233,000. Yet even as the creation of the finished product disappeared from the US economy, demand for American cotton in the global textile sector has only grown: Exports’ share of domestic cotton production has expanded from 32 percent in 1948 to 74 percent in 2012. About half of all American cotton goes to China, where massive, automated machinery spins and weaves it into bolts of cloth that are then sent to factories that assemble clothing. But wages in China have steadily risen over the past decade, and manufacturers, in the pursuit of lower costs and wider margins, have found cheaper labor elsewhere in South Asia. Enter Bangladesh, a country whose garment exports have skyrocketed from a mere 6.4millionin1983to6.4 million in 1983 to 6.4millionin1983to21.5 billion in 2012. Bangladesh’s readymade garment (RMG) industry has been the sole force behind the country’s rapid industrialization, shifting its economy away from agriculture and toward manufacturing and drawing a rural population into the churning city of Dhaka. Most garment workers there face working conditions comparable to those of American sweatshops in the 1910s and have struggled to gain a minimum wage of $68 per month. After two weeks of saving every cent, a worker could afford the retail price of a Gap Tshirt. Demand for low prices on the consumer side leads retailers to seek low production costs, but the human cost only rises: In 2013, more than 1,100 garment workers died in Bangladeshi factories. The Bangladesh RMG industry gets most of its cotton from India and Uzbekistan, countries that trail the US in terms of sheer cotton exports but whose proximity makes for cheaper and easier trade. But while the likelihood of an American farmer’s cotton ending up in Bangladesh is low, a piece of clothing made in a Bangladeshi factory has a one in four chance of ending up in the US and a 50 percent chance of ending up in the European Union. In other words, on the supply side, American cotton and Dhaka factories are cousins several steps removed. In terms of demand, the relationship between Western retailers— and consumers— and the RMG industry is more directly causal. Including the Pacific Ocean, 8,500 miles lie between Yazoo City and Dhaka— but that distance vanishes between here and any local mall. —Matthew MacFarland R E P O R T I N G
Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems - SenSys '10, 2010
Heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) is the largest source of residential energy consumption. ... more Heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) is the largest source of residential energy consumption. In this paper, we demonstrate how to use cheap and simple sensing technology to automatically sense occupancy and sleep patterns in a home, and how to use these patterns to save energy by automatically turning off the home's HVAC system. We call this approach the smart thermostat. We evaluate this approach by deploying sensors in 8 homes and comparing the expected energy usage of our algorithm against existing approaches. We demonstrate that our approach will achieve a 28% energy saving on average, at a cost of approximately $25 in sensors. In comparison, a commercially-available baseline approach that uses similar sensors saves only 6.8% energy on average, and actually increases energy consumption in 4 of the 8 households.