IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devchg/v53y2022i1p3-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Business of Abolition: Marketizing ‘Anti‐slavery’

Author

Listed:
  • Siobhan McGrath
  • Fabiola Mieres

Abstract

This article conceptualizes contemporary abolitionism as a commodifying cause characterized by multiple processes of marketization. It demonstrates how concerns about the unethical commodification of labour form the basis of a variety of marketization projects and processes. Three processes of marketization in this arena are identified: making relations of advocacy and activism more market‐like; seeking to rehabilitate and/or reform markets in the face of ‘supply chain slavery’; and pursuing abolitionism through commodification. Drawing on project data, and supplemented with empirical observations, interventions to address ‘slavery’, human trafficking and/or forced labour in supply chains are identified and analysed. Marketization is employed as a lens to understand the diverse field of contemporary abolitionism and its relationships to (ideas of) the market. The article highlights how ongoing efforts to reconcile ‘slavery’ and the market posit ethical markets as the solution to the unethical commodification of labour. These efforts are marked by tensions and contradictions, however, necessitating discursive work to position ‘slavery’ as emerging from outside the market.

Suggested Citation

  • Siobhan McGrath & Fabiola Mieres, 2022. "The Business of Abolition: Marketizing ‘Anti‐slavery’," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(1), pages 3-30, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:53:y:2022:i:1:p:3-30
    DOI: 10.1111/dech.12701
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12701
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/dech.12701?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luc Fransen & Brian Burgoon & Genevieve LeBaron & Andreas Rühmkorf, 2017. "Steering CSR Through Home State Regulation: A Comparison of the Impact of the UK Bribery Act and Modern Slavery Act on Global Supply Chain Governance," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(s3), pages 15-28, May.
    2. Harvey, David, 2007. "A Brief History of Neoliberalism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199283279.
    3. Michael Blowfield & Catherine S. Dolan, 2014. "Business as a development agent: evidence of possibility and improbability," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 22-42, January.
    4. Fabiola MIERES & Siobhán MCGRATH, 2021. "Ripe to be heard: Worker voice in the Fair Food Program," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 160(4), pages 631-647, December.
    5. Christian Berndt & Manuel Wirth, 2019. "Struggling for the Moral Market: Economic Knowledge, Diverse Markets, and Market Borders," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 95(3), pages 288-309, May.
    6. Michael J. Mouat & Russell Prince & Michael M. Roche, 2019. "Making Value Out of Ethics: The Emerging Economic Geography of Lab-grown Meat and Other Animal-free Food Products," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 95(2), pages 136-158, March.
    7. Andrew Guth & Robyn Anderson & Kasey Kinnard & Hang Tran, 2014. "Proper Methodology and Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Slavery Data: An Examination of the Global Slavery Index," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(4), pages 14-22.
    8. Paul Langley, 2020. "The folds of social finance: Making markets, remaking the social," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(1), pages 130-147, February.
    9. Brown, Carolyn & van der Linden, Marcel, 2010. "Shifting Boundaries between Free and Unfree Labor: Introduction," International Labor and Working-Class History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 4-11, October.
    10. repec:bla:glopol:v:8:y:2017:i::p:15-28 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Peter Lund-Thomsen & Adam Lindgreen, 2014. "Corporate Social Responsibility in Global Value Chains: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 11-22, August.
    12. James B. Stewart, 2015. "“Using History to Make Slavery History”: The African American Past and the Challenge of Contemporary Slavery," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(1), pages 125-135.
    13. Dan Brockington, 2014. "The production and construction of celebrity advocacy in international development," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 88-108, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Palash Kamruzzaman, 2017. "Understanding the Role of National Development Experts in Development Ethnography," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35(1), pages 39-63, January.
    2. Kimberly N. Hill‐Tout & Roberta Hawkins, 2023. "Accessorizing development: Fundraising bracelets for International Development as a New Development Responsibility," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 2046-2066, October.
    3. Jacob Broom, 2021. "Social impact bonds and fast policy: Analyzing the Australian experience," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(1), pages 113-130, February.
    4. Pishchulov, Grigory & Trautrims, Alexander & Chesney, Thomas & Gold, Stefan & Schwab, Leila, 2019. "The Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process revisited: A revised method with application to sustainable supplier selection," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 166-179.
    5. Howard Stein, 2012. "The Neoliberal Policy Paradigm and the Great Recession," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 59(4), pages 421-440, September.
    6. Margareet Visser & Matthew Alford, 2024. "Governance and Power Across Intersecting Value Chains: The Case of South African Apples," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(1), pages 69-86, January.
    7. Jamie Redman, 2020. "The Benefit Sanction: A Correctional Device or a Weapon of Disgust?," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(1), pages 84-100, March.
    8. Grzegorz W. Kolodko, 2009. "A Two-thirds Rate of Success: Polish Transformation and Economic Development, 1989-2008," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2009-14, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Andrew Crookston, 2012. "Thomas J. Bassett and Alex Winter-Nelson: The atlas of world hunger," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(2), pages 277-278, June.
    10. Cohen, Joseph N, 2010. "Neoliberalism’s relationship with economic growth in the developing world: Was it the power of the market or the resolution of financial crisis?," MPRA Paper 24527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Yang Shen, 2015. "Why Does the Government Fail to Improve the Living Conditions of Migrant Workers in Shanghai? Reflections on the Policies and the Implementations of Public Rental Housing under Neoliberalism," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 58-74, January.
    12. Magdalena Correo Henao & Daniela Amaya Castro & Mario Andrés Ospina Ramírez & Federico Suárez Ricaurte, 2021. "Pobreza y desigualdad prospectiva 2030. XXI jornadas de derecho constitucional constitucionalismo en ransformación. Prospectiva 2030," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 1298, October.
    13. Blocker, Christopher P. & Ruth, Julie A. & Sridharan, Srinivas & Beckwith, Colin & Ekici, Ahmet & Goudie-Hutton, Martina & Rosa, José Antonio & Saatcioglu, Bige & Talukdar, Debabrata & Trujillo, Carlo, 2013. "Understanding poverty and promoting poverty alleviation through transformative consumer research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1195-1202.
    14. Lise Arena & Leonard Minkes, 2019. "The virtues of dialogue between academics and businessmen," Post-Print hal-01620574, HAL.
    15. Baum, Fran & Ziersch, Anna & Freeman, Toby & Javanparast, Sara & Henderson, Julie & Mackean, Tamara, 2020. "Strife of Interests: Constraints on integrated and co-ordinated comprehensive PHC in Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    16. Fu Jia & Yan Jiang, 2018. "Sustainable Global Sourcing: A Systematic Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-26, February.
    17. Diana Floegel & Kaitlin L. Costello, 2022. "Methods for a feminist technoscience of information practice: Design justice and speculative futurities," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 73(4), pages 625-634, April.
    18. Sean Brayton, 2012. "Working Stiff(s) on Reality Television during the Great Recession," Societies, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-17, October.
    19. Wilkinson, Michael & Lokdam, Hjalte, 2018. "Law and political economy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87544, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Ravenscroft, Sue & Williams, Paul F., 2009. "Making imaginary worlds real: The case of expensing employee stock options," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(6-7), pages 770-786, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:53:y:2022:i:1:p:3-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0012-155X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.