Fair Trade The Challenges of Transforming Globalization

"Fair Trade is a timely and comprehensive account of the key dilemmas associated with the fair trade movement's mainstreaming in corporate markets across world regions. An impressive range of chapters by outstanding researchers introduces fair trade's multiple claims, and claimants, and evaluates fair trade's growing pains as it increasingly expresses and informs a 'new globalization.' "Professor Philip McMichael, Cornell University, USA."This book provides a critical and compelling analysis of the progressive origins and contemporary challenges and dilemmas confronting the Fair Trade movement as its products leave the charity shop and find shelf space on the High Street. Contributors assess the future of this global social movement and its capacity to institute ethical values and alternative trading practices that empower small farmers and open up more equitable paths of development in the global South."David Goodman, University of California, USA. This book explores the challenges and potential of Fair Trade, one of the world's most dynamic efforts to enhance global social justice and environmental sustainability through market based social change.Fair Trade links food consumers and agricultural producers across the Global North/ South divide and lies at the heart of key efforts to reshape the global economy. In market arenas, Fair Trade is linked to other certification, labelling, and corporate social responsibility initiatives. In movement arenas, Fair Trade is aligned to a range of alternative globalization and trade justice efforts. This book reveals the challenges Fair Trade faces in its effort to transform globalization, emphasizing the inherent tensions in working both in, and against, the market. The volume explores Fair Trade's recent rapid growth into new production regions, market arenas, and commodity areas through case studies of Europe, North America, Africa, and Latin America undertaken by prominent scholars in each region. The authors draw on, and advance, global commodity and value chain analysis, convention, and social movement approaches through these case studies and a series of synthetic analytical chapters. Pressures for both more radical and more moderate approaches intertwine with the movement's historical vision, reshaping Fair Trade's priorities and efforts in the Global North and South.This text will be of strong interest to students and scholars of politics, globalization, sociology, geography, economics and business.Wilkinson, John is the author of 'Fair Trade The Challenges of Transforming Globalization', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415772020 and ISBN 0415772028.