Critical Perspectives on Fair Trade

For some years now, fair trade has been typically spoken and written about in solely positive terms, as a ‘trading partnership based on dialogue, transparency and respect, which seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South’. (FINE, 2001 in Moore, 2004: 73). However, the current global economic recession has brought with it the need to reflect upon the way in which trade activities are carried out across the world, including those practices associated with fair trade. For example, questions have been asked whether, indeed, the ‘Fair Trade Project’ is entirely beneficial to all involved parties and whether, in the present economic climate, we can actually afford to engage in fair trade.

Responding to Goodman (2004: 910), who sees a need for fair trade to continue to ‘become more politically and economically threatening’ by opening up ‘the definition of “fairness” contra its economic logic to facilitate a broader constituency from which to construct a less privileged, more sustainable, and more just sense of development….plantation workers, growers with lower quality products, and coffee servers can and should become a moral and politicized goal for fair trade…a re-centering of Northern identities around notions of global citizenship rather than those of a one dimensional consumer’, we seek contributions to the critical exploration of the practices and discourses of fair trade.

Contributions to the special issue may take theoretical or empirical approaches to the nature, dysfunctions and/or possibilities of fair trade. They might, for example, include discussions of:

* How fair is fair trade?
* Ethics of consumption and fair trade
* Marketing and fair trade
* Power and identity issues in fair trade
* Mainstreaming of fair trade
* Environmental and sustainability issues of fair trade
* The fair trade status of a city / university
* Fair trade as business strategy
* Political economy of fair trade
* Accreditation and cost of fair trade to producers
* Accountability and impact of fair trade on producers
* Co-operative and collective business models for fair trade


Those wishing to contribute should submit an extended of 1,000 words to Jane Gibbon jane.gibbon@ncl.ac.uk or Martyna Sliwa martyna.sliwa@ncl.ac.uk by 30th November 2009. Feedback on the abstracts will be provided by December 30th 2009. Full papers of 5,000 - 8,000 words should be submitted to the Guest Editors by 30th April 2010.

Suitable articles will be subjected to a double-blind review; hence authors should not identify themselves in the body of the paper.

The special issue is scheduled for publication in February 2011. Papers submitted must not have been published, accepted for publication, or be under consideration for publication. For additional information about the journal please see the journal’s webpage: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/cpoib.htm