Fair Trade, Sustainability and Social Change (International Political Economy Series)

The authors critically evaluate the fair trade movement's role in pursuing a more just and environmentally sustainable society. Using fair trade as a case study of the shift toward non-state forms of governance, they focus on its role not only as a regulatory tool, but as a catalyst for broader social and political transformation. Is fair trade a radical movement aiming to transform global systems of production and exchange, or is it a marketing niche that delivers small benefits to Southern farmers and a clean conscience to Northern consumers? Schisms currently opening between the US-based Fair Trade USA and the rest of the international fair trade movement are reflective of this choice. This book evaluates the extent to which fair trade is likely to be a transformative movement. The authors show that fair trade's most significant, and threatened, contribution is its potential to reveal to otherwise 'blinded' consumers the qualitative aspects of labour and nature embodied in commodities. Integrating insights from economic and sociological theory and research, the book sheds new light on this potential of the movement, its role in producing social change, and, given the recent strategic trajectory of the movement, the serious problems it now faces (site de l'éditeur) Front Matter....Pages i-xii Things and What They Hide....Pages 1-27 Car Trunks to Shipping Containers....Pages 28-69 The Persistence of Poverty....Pages 70-92 Free Riding and the Fairness Frame....Pages 93-126 Power and Consumption: Corporate Countermovement and the Threat of Asymmetry....Pages 127-172 W(h)ither Fair Trade?....Pages 173-183 Afterword: Fair Trade in a Boom Market....Pages 184-186 Back Matter....Pages 187-225