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What is Fair Trade?

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  • Andrew Walton

Abstract

This article categorises the emerging conceptualisations of Fair Trade and explores which of them offers the best characterisation of the project. It introduces Fair Trade and establishes a set of desiderata to guide the process of conceptualisation. It is argued that the practices and rhetoric of the project suggest it is best characterised as an attempt to establish a form of interim global market justice in a non-ideal world. Three alternative conceptualisations are explored, some including sub-categories. In each section a description of the view is outlined and it is argued that each such alternative is either an unpersuasive account of Fair Trade or cannot better the one already defended. In the final section the normative debate surrounding Fair Trade conceptualised as an attempt to establish interim global market justice in a non-ideal world is introduced. The article suggests that there are avenues for the project's ethical defence but concludes that this can be settled only with further research.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Walton, 2010. "What is Fair Trade?," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 431-447.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:31:y:2010:i:3:p:431-447
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2010.488474
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    Cited by:

    1. Delphine Pouchain & Jérôme Ballet, 2018. "Fair Trade and the Fetishization of Levinasian Ethics," Post-Print hal-02390913, HAL.
    2. Jérôme Blanc & Marie Fare, 2016. "Turning values concrete: the role and ways of business selection in local currency schemes," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 74(3), pages 298-319, September.
    3. Leutgeb, Anita, 2014. "Fair Trade, better lives? An assessment of Fair Trade's contribution to improve Turkana basket weavers' livelihoods," ÖFSE-Forum, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE), volume 59, number 59.
    4. Gavin Hilson, 2014. "‘Constructing’ Ethical Mineral Supply Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Malawian Fair Trade Rubies," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(1), pages 53-78, January.
    5. Horodecka, Anna & Śliwińska, Magdalena, 2019. "Fair Trade phenomenon – limits of neoclassical and chances of heterodox economics," Studia z Polityki Publicznej / Public Policy Studies, Warsaw School of Economics, vol. 6(3), pages 1-29, July.

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