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2015, New Political Economy
In this article we analyse Fair Trade as a form of non-state regulation, building on the literature on the internal politics and governance of Fair Trade International (FTI) certification. We focus on recent developments in the FTI certification system, including the split of Fair Trade USA from FTI and the emergence of the Small Producer’s Symbol (SPP) as an alternative to FTI certification. We highlight the role of the three regional Producer Networks, in particular the Latin American Producer Network, the CLAC, in the politics and governance of the FTI system. In order to analyse these issues we employ an alternative reading of Karl Polanyi’s work in relation to Fair Trade. We problematise the claim made by some in the literature that FTI certification is an example of Polanyi’s concept of re-embedding. Instead, we draw on Polanyi’s concept of oversight to analyse Fair Trade certification. We argue that the emergence of the SPP out of the CLAC shows promise for being a mechanism of oversight more reflective of Polanyian re-embedding than FTI certification. We also emphasise how the growth of the SPP and the pressure from the Producer Networks have prompted governance reform within the FTI system.
2020 •
In light of the rise of the (semi-)private regulation of markets through standards systems, this article explores the underlying processes by which private governance is developed through two case studies of fair trade. We illustrate how there are competing logics playing out in different parts of the movement with regards to how the core values that the system is supposed to promote (i.e. fairness and smallholder empowerment) are being defined. We show that participation, as a core type of input legitimacy, is still highly contested even when it is present. Moreover, there is an intricate relationship between the tools of governance and participation. We argue that the focus on the tools is currently overriding the values of fairness on which they are supposed to deliver. We therefore propose that attention be paid to how these tools are used and by whom, so to value which aspects of fair trade.
Can global capitalism be defeated by its own means? Since their first campaigns in the late 1960s, fair trade activists in Western Europe attempted to address global inequality by transforming the global marketplace in favor of producers in the South. Their campaigns have aimed to publicize issues of ‘fair trade’ between South and North and to directly improve the economic position of producers in the South by selling their produce. The remarkable recent visibility of fair trade has caused a heated debate about its viability, its limits, and its history. This paper focuses on the transnational history of fair trade in the 1980s and 1990s, attempting to situate the introduction of fair trade certification within the history of the movement.
Environment and Society: Advances in Research
Fair Trade and Fair Trade Certification of Food and Agricultural Commodities: Promises, Pitfalls, and Possibilities2011 •
American Anthropologist
Certification and Neoliberal Governance: Moral Economies of Fair Trade in the Eastern Caribbean2014 •
Many consumers and food-justice activists regard Fair Trade as a moral alternative to markets dominated by corporate agribusiness. Fair Trade frames producer-consumer relationships in the language of reciprocity and justice rather than the impersonal logic of the market. Despite its moral economy discourse, the movement embodies neoliberal assumptions that regulation and development should occur through the realm of consumer choice rather than state intervention. To receive the higher prices that Fair Trade promises, farmers are subject to certification processes that heavily regulate their planting practices and development priorities. Here I explore the
Agriculture & Human Values
Who’s the Fairest of Them All? The Fractured Landscape of U.S. Fair Trade Certification2016 •
(Authors: Daniel Jaffee and Philip H. Howard) In recent years, consumers in the United States have been confronted by no fewer than four competing fair-trade labels, each grounded in a separate certification system and widely differing standards. This fracturing is partly a response to the recent split by the U.S. certifier Fair Trade USA from the international fair trade system, but also illustrates longstanding divisions within the fair trade movement. This article explores the dynamics of competition among nonstate standards through content analyses of fair trade standards documents from the four U.S. fair-trade certifications for agrifood products (Fair Trade USA, Fairtrade America, Fair for Life, and the Small Producer Symbol). It analyzes the differences among them, asking what kinds of social and labor relations are facilitated by each, and identifies how closely they correspond with key fair trade principles. We make two primary arguments. First, we contend that the case of fair trade challenges the dominant conceptual model used to analyze competition among multiple private standards in a single arena, in which newer challengers lower the rigor of standards. Second, we argue that the current fractured U.S. certification landscape illuminates divisions among different interest groups over which principles—and which labor and production forms—should be privileged under the banner of fair trade.
Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology
The Global Fair Trade Movement: For Whom, By Whom, How, and What Next2020 •
This chapter aims to provide a snapshot of the current fair trade movement by addressing four provocative questions: 1) Fair trade for whom? 2) Fair trade by whom? 3) How may fair trade labeling and certification support these goals (or not)? and 4) What next for fair trade’s approach to capitalism and the state? For new readers, the chapter provides an introduction to fair trade that focuses primarily on the current moment. For readers more familiar with fair trade, it offers an updated summary of key debates in the field, drawing heavily on literature published in the last five years. This chapter also highlights linkages between fair trade and the environment. It describes the ways in which fair trade can support environmental conservation, raises questions about climate justice, and shows how certification programs can pit people against the planet, rather than supporting both. The following section provides basic background information on the fair trade movement.
Journal of Rural Studies
Fair trade: quality, market and conventions2003 •
This article analyses Fair Trade, its evolution and the challenges it faces, in the light of the convention theory and its application to the ambit of agro-food.The article reviews the different meanings and models of what has come to be called Fair Trade, since its beginning as alternative trade, considered as the prototype of a “civic coordination”, to its insertion into the large distribution channels through the labeling strategy, that is, when it is reinforced by “market coordination”. It discusses the possibility of Fair Trade being re-absorbed by the market logic and captured by the dominant actors of the food system who, attracted by its success, have already adopted strategies to win the promising niche market for themselves, while producers preoccupied with the struggle for survival and looking for the possibility of increasing sales volumes, require to move beyond the limits of marginal distribution circuits and to enter the market full steam.To counter this risk, one key element in strengthening Fair Trade is to empower the label as a base for network legitimacy and a product of social interaction. This means to reinforce the civic coordination by public authority through the state recognition and the institutionalization of their symbol. On the other hand, it is important not to lose sight of the social interactions on which Fair Trade was built and of the importance of mobilizing them, since those who control the mechanisms of this social interaction have the power to impose their legitimate vision of the quality. In this sense, the article integrates the issue of power largely forgotten in the studies on quality.
The contemporary fair trade system has a distinctive, hybrid character as a production and trading network, a social governance arrangement, and a transnational social movement. From the perspective of global governance innovation, it can perhaps be best conceptualised as an 'alternative' normative and institutional system to both organise and govern production and trade. Its central purpose is to operate an alternative market through which commodities can be produced and traded on terms that promote sustainable social development among marginalized workers and producers, particularly those in the global South. The institutional core of the fair trade system is built around its trading activities, which create alternative supply chain systems linking producers to participating fair trade buyers in countries where the products are consumed. This core institutional structure has loose links with a broad collection of organizations and networks with wider 'social movement' characteristics. An increasingly formalised governance system has been built to facilitate and regulate these core activities. Although the core activities of the system are market oriented, the principles orienting the governance system are overtly political, based on principles of economic justice and democratic governance. The following discussion reviews the history of fair trade's emergence and evolution, outlines the system's key activities and organisational structures, and presents a brief evaluation of the system's strengths and weaknesses in terms of the democratic quality of its decision making processes, the effectiveness of its efforts to promote goals of social development and trade justice, and the system's overall legitimacy. 1
2024 •
Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts
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