Book Description

This is an important and valuable contribution both to our understanding of fair trade and the broader context in which it operates. Dr Hutchens develops an exciting new theory and presents extensive original empirical work to construct a rigorous and, at times, challenging argument concerning the limits and opportunities for the fair trade movement going forward. Alex Nicholls, University of Oxford, UK Drawing on candid accounts from practitioners, producers and industry representatives, this informative and proactive volume investigates the challenges facing today s fair trade movement and provides unique insights into the workings of social and economic power in world markets. Using original, in-depth empirical data, Anna Hutchens develops several new approaches to understanding power, governance and social change across the broad interdisciplinary fields of development, economics and politics. Emphasising fair trade s entrepreneurs, this book investigates the creation of innovative commercial fair trade business models that are often neglected in fair trade research but are crucial to the fair trade movement s survival in commercial markets. As corporate involvement in fair trade markets grows, these models will be the key variable for the sustainability of fair trade into the future. This book will be warmly welcomed by academics in the fields of economics, political science and sociology working on free trade and fair trade. International non-government organisations, such as Oxfam, and international fair trade networks will find this book invaluable. Government officials (particularly in the EU Commission and parliamentarians) working on fair trade and/or trade-and-development policy and analysis will also find this book of particular interest.