《What is Fair Trade》.pdfVIP

Third World Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2010, pp 431–447 What is Fair Trade? 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. Fair Trade is a project attracting increasing attention in both public and academic domains. Despite this growing interest, however, there is a lack of clarity regarding how we should conceptualise Fair Trade. There is no settled understanding of how the present Fair Trade project (its motivating goals and existing facets) is best characterised. In essence, there is no established answer to the question ‘What is Fair Trade?’. A number of possible answers has been proffered (or at least implicitly suggested), but little attempt has been made to evaluate them or identify the most plausible construal of the 1 movement. In order to develop a complete and valuable understanding of Fair Trade, this shortcoming must be rectified. Here