Resistance, redistribution, and power in the Fair Trade banana initiative

Aimee Shreck ()

Agriculture and Human Values, 2005, vol. 22, issue 1, 17-29

Abstract: The Fair Trade movement seeks to alter conventional trade relations through a system of social and environmental standards, certification, and labels designed to help shorten the social distance between consumers in the North and producers in the South. The strategy is based on working both ‘in and against’ the same global capitalist market that it hopes to alter, raising questions about if and how Fair Trade initiatives exhibit counter-hegemonic potential to transform the conventional agro-food system. This paper considers the multiple levels at which Fair Trade alternatives operate to identify the different forms of social action that the movement engages with, and to clarify where the movement’s counter-hegemonic potentials are being realized. I suggest the Fair Trade movement is most successful in encouraging consumers and producers to commit acts of resistance and in supporting redistributive action that shifts resources from North to South. Up to now, however, Fair Trade alternatives appear to hold only a theoretical potential to provoke transformative change in the agro-food system. A reconceptualization of the Fair Trade model and how it is implemented could allow it to manifest more of its implicit, oppositional promise. Copyright Springer 2005

Keywords: Alternative agriculture; Alternative food systems; Alternative trade; Counter-hegemonic movements; Fair Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10460-004-7227-y (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:22:y:2005:i:1:p:17-29

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10460

DOI: 10.1007/s10460-004-7227-y

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture and Human Values is currently edited by Harvey S. James Jr.

More articles in Agriculture and Human Values from Springer, The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().