Localising Change, Pursuing Fairtrade

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Friday 20 December 2024

By Jennifer Graley – 4th year

As an endeavour of global justice, Fairtrade is fundamentally a system of networked equity that rests upon the pillar of localised action. Embodied through a framework of supply chain connectivity, Fairtrade seeks to enact this connection through the configuration of international systematic change. Central to its determination of the ‘fair’, this movement aims to deconstruct the ‘unfair’, perpetuating just trade systems through a challenging of powerlessness. In pursuit of a sustainable future, Fairtrade employs the purposeful, intentionally shifting how we think about consumption, labour, and production. Through its ethically-driven determination, Fairtrade illuminates the ambiguities of both ‘standards’ and ‘practices’, principles that have historically been concealed through a deliberate marginalisation of lived experience within global supply chains.

The ‘Fairtrade Foundation’ logo. Source: Fairtrade Foundation, 2024.

Here in St Andrews, localised ambitions for change are evident through the work of the ‘St Andrews Fairtrade Town Campaign’ group. As individuals from the local community, this group strives to realise transformation, making change through the Fairtrade network a tangible reality. As a localisation of the global, this campaign group have worked diligently to implement strategies within the town to pursue a fairer future for all. Due to the dedicated commitment of this group, St Andrews is officially certified as a ‘Fairtrade community’. One can question, however, how is this emblem of a ‘Fairtrade community’ significant? Intrinsically, this recognition signifies that our town harbours individuals who are passionate about supporting the Fairtrade movement, working to support practices of consciousness and ethicality. Central to the dedication of the town’s Fairtrade group lies their work with both the university and local schools, who they engage with to raise awareness about an inclusive and transparent trade future. To inspire the next generation to enact change, it is essential to foster intergenerational systems of solidarity within locality. To envision collaboration, we must harness a mutuality of collectivised action to achieve a fairer future through practices of community care.

Fairtrade action in St Andrews. Source: Kevin McRoberts, Fife Today, 2022.

As a community also implementing localised efforts for transformation, the ‘Fair Trade Alliance Kerala (FTAK)’ in Kerala, India champion change through their promotion of positive local difference. Localising the core principles of Fairtrade, FTAK is a farmer-led movement that networks regional cashew growers through a co-operative to collectively resist oppressive systems of global trade. It is essential to recognise that this alliance is fundamentally ‘farmer-led’; intrinsically this movement is grassroots by nature. Seeking to contest ‘traditional’ narratives of vulnerability and discrimination, this farming network pursues a reconstruction of India’s commodity production landscape. Striving for a localised sense of justice to support the lives of local growers and their families, the FTAK recognises women as central figures of their farming communities. Through the FTAK network, women within the Kerala region mobilise intersectionality to pursue just trade as defenders of both food security and everyday sustainabilites. To truly envision a ‘fairer’ trading future, we must be willing to disrupt the binaries of ‘consumer’ and ‘producer’, ‘powerful’ and ‘powerless’, and arguably ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’. The FTAK undoubtably exemplifies this revolution through their mechanism of local action; a clustering of localised change is enabled through their reclamation of commodity production.

The ‘FTAK Family’. Source: Fair Trade Alliance Kerala, 2024.

Establishing a network of global community through local action, Fairtrade ultimately strives to revolutionise discourse on trade. Whether these efforts are situated within St Andrews or Kerala, Fairtrade leverages the local as a means of amplifying voices that strive for a just and sustainable future. Unified through ties of everyday experience and human emotionality, Fairtrade’s framework inherently prioritises the nurturing of conversation as a means of action. As an acknowledgement of unequal pasts, and the pursuit of just futures, the Fairtrade movement is at its core a pursuit of human rights, for a secure livelihood should be an intrinsic universality for all. Through the enacting of local change, we can through collaboration pursue a fairer system of trade, for the local is a powerful site of resistance to the global ‘unfair’.  

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