Buying into Fair Trade: Culture, Morality, and Consumption

By Keith R Brown

Stamped on products
from coffee to handicrafts, the term “fair trade” has quickly become one of
today’s most seductive consumer buzzwords. Purportedly created through fair
labor practices, or in ways that are environmentally sustainable, fair-trade
products give buyers peace of mind in knowing that, in theory, how they shop
can help make the world a better place. Buying
into Fair Trade turns the spotlight onto this growing trend, exploring how fair-trade
shoppers think about their own altruism within an increasingly global economy.





Using over 100 interviews with
fair-trade consumers, national leaders of the movement, coffee farmers, and
artisans, author Keith Brown describes both the strategies that consumers use
to confront the moral contradictions involved in trying to shop ethically and the
ways shopkeepers and suppliers reconcile their need to do good with the
ever-present need to turn a profit. In addition to his in-depth analysis of the
fair-trade market, Brown also provides a how-to chapter that outlines
strategies readers can use to appear altruistic.This chapter highlights the ways that
socially responsible markets have been detached from issues of morality. A
fascinating account of how consumers
first learn about, understand, and sometimes ignore the ethical implications of
shopping, Buying into Fair Trade sheds
new light on the potential for the fair trade market to reshape the world into
a more socially-just place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9780814725399

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BUYING INTO FAIR TRADE

Buying into Fair Trade

Culture, Morality, and Consumption

Keith R. Brown

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York and London

www.nyupress.org

© 2013 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet Websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Keith R.

Buying into fair trade : culture, morality, and consumption / Keith R. Brown.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8147-2536-8 (cl : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8147-2537-5 (pb : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8147-2538-2 (e-book)—ISBN 978-0-8147-2539-9 (e-book)

1. Consumption (Economics)—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Consumption (Economics)—Social aspects. 3. International trade—Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Social responsibility of business. I. Title.

HB835.B76 2013

306.3—dc23        2012043772

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.

Manufactured in the United States of America

c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

1. A Taste of Life in the Nicaraguan Campo

2. Just One Normal Coffee: Crafting Joe’s Moral Reputation

3. Buy More Coffee: Becoming a Promoter through Extraordinary Experiences

4. Who Are We Pillaging from This Time?: Managing Value Contradictions in Shopping

5. How to Appear Altruistic

6. The Great Recession and the Social Significance of Buying into Fair Trade

Appendix: Research Methods

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All authors are asked why they chose to write about their selected topic. I tell my colleagues that I chose to write about fair trade because I wanted a case study to explore culture, morality, and markets. This answer seems to satisfy them, but it is really a bit of a lie. I chose to study the fair-trade movement because of a series of meaningful moments throughout my life. When I was young, my mom worked for Bell Atlantic and had to both sell products to customers and listen to their many complaints. I remember her telling me some of the strategies she had to use to defuse their anger. My dad often worked at home selling supplies for a fire safety company. I remember listening to him tell jokes and talk politely in a loud voice over the phone. I also remember him hanging up, cursing, and screaming after many of these same calls. I distinctly remember my excitement playing a stock market game in the sixth grade where we were taught to make educated gambles about which stocks would become profitable. (The team that won took the riskiest strategy by putting all its money on one stock.) In college, I remember the C that I earned in my undergraduate microeconomics course. Although I had a great professor, I could not accept all the assumptions in economics about rational consumer behavior. I ended the course by writing a mediocre paper on Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and then switched my major to sociology. After college, I accepted a job as a financial planner. I quit after my first day, in part because I didn’t want to wear a suit and because my boss said that I would have to change my haircut in order to attract more customers.

In all these instances, shared meanings (or culture) profoundly shaped economic decisions. My mom was trained to talk in a soothing voice to her irate customers, my dad hid his backstage personality from his customers while trying to make a sale, the shared understandings about mergers helped a sixth-grade team win the stock market game (they invested heavily in Kraft), and a required haircut may have shaped my career trajectory. As for the economics course—well, at the time, introductory economics courses talked little about nonrational behavior. Times have changed, and many behavioral economists are looking at how culture, ethnicity, and identity influence markets. In recent years, sociologists, psychologists, and marketers have also adjusted their theoretical lenses and focused on the importance of culture and morality in markets. This is the area that has always interested me, and it is the focus of Buying into Fair Trade.

I would first like to thank the members of the fair-trade movement who welcomed me into their homes, allowed me to attend their meetings, agreed to participate in one- and two-hour interviews for just a cup of coffee, let me volunteer in retail stores and off-site fairs, and provided me with inside access to a world I knew very little about. The great majority of people that I approached for interviews agreed to sit down and speak with me. Members of Ten Thousand Villages agreed to let me observe their stores and even provided insight into their marketing strategies. Members of the Independents Coffee Cooperative let me follow them around like a groupie. I attended their meetings, followed them to fair-trade events, and listened to them talk about the merits of fair trade to college students, business leaders, and customers. A number of individuals are particularly worth thanking for introducing me to others in the movement and for encouraging me to complete this project: Doug Dirks, Joe Cesa, Jacqueline DeCarlo, and Jill Fink. I continue to be inspired by the work they and countless others do within the fair-trade movement.

My colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania greatly shaped this project. Robin Leidner has provided more support than I could have expected. She offered extensive comments on every draft that I sent to her and guided me throughout this project. David Grazian listened and critiqued countless half-baked ideas. He always helped me focus on the big picture. Randy Collins amazed me with the speed at which he was able to provide feedback on early drafts. I am incredibly grateful for the time he devoted to this project. And Bill Bielby provided smart, insightful feedback on the versions that I sent to him. I thank them all for their thoughtful and critical insights.

At the University of Pennsylvania, I was fortunate to have found a network of friends and scholars who read many early drafts of this book: Silke Roth, Adair Crosley, Jamie Fader, Stefan Kluseman, Jacob Avery, Chuck Bosk, and Simone Polillo. I was incredibly lucky to share similar research interests with Frederick Wherry. Fred’s constant prodding to just write it, along with his insights into economic sociology, greatly aided this book. The sociology department provided summer funding through the Gertrude and Otto Pollack Summer Research Fellowship, which allowed me to travel to Nicaragua. Although I feel as if I have been working on this project for a lifetime, this book would still be in progress if not for the ethnographic training, financial support, and gracious colleagues that I found at the University of Pennsylvania.

Many others spent time reading chapters of this book. Bryant Simon spent countless hours reviewing the manuscript at both early and late stages of development. Bryant was always able to see through my murky ideas and point me in a clear direction. Debbie Becher, Patricia Tevington, and Susan Clampet-Lundquist also read drafts of these chapters and provided very helpful feedback. Maria Kefalas helped me rethink and rewrite much of chapters 1 and 3. I found moral support and mostly maintained my sanity through working alongside great friends such as Meredith Rosner, Cathy Van de Ruit, Lijun Yang, Carolanne Saunders, Allesandro Pratesi, Evelyn Patterson, Faye Glass, Phil Anglewitz, and Rachelle Brunnn.

Although I worked on this book at the University of Pennsylvania, the seeds for many of the ideas in it were planted at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. I benefited greatly from the ideas of colleagues and mentors such as Joya Misra, Rick Fantasia, Sarah Babb, Agustin Lao-Montes, Jonathan Woodring, Suzanne Model, and Brian Kapitulik. Joshua Carreiro read many of the chapters in this book and provided much-needed critical insight.

Many others gave their time and effort to this book. Cindy Blohm and Amy Van Stauss read numerous drafts and greatly aided in the co-pyediting of the manuscript. My sister, Pamela Lowe, took most of the pictures that appear in the book. Laura Wall Starke generously sent me her transcriptions of Paul Rice’s talk at a fair-trade conference in Philadelphia. My parents spent many hours watching their grandchildren while questioning what I was doing at work when I wasn’t teaching. I hope this book will prove to them that I was doing something.

I presented drafts of this book at various conferences, where I received feedback from experts in consumer culture, the sociology of culture, and economic sociology. The feedback from Juliet Schor, Craig Thompson, Andrew Perrin, Daniel Cook, Michael Burawoy, David Gibson, Robin Wagner-Pacifici, and Jeff Coburn helped me think deeper about many of the ideas in this book. Often, it took me many months to appreciate the depth of their comments.

I finished this book while working as an assistant professor at Saint Joseph’s University. I could not have asked for more supportive colleagues than I found at Saint Joseph’s. I have been able to teach classes on fair trade and ethical consumption. In a number of instances, my interactions with students in the classroom helped me rethink my ideas. I have also received summer research funding fom Saint Joseph’s University, which helped me devote more time to writing. Alicia Wolf-Lewis provided invaluable research support while I was writing my book proposal. Jessica Wallace devoted more time to this project than I ever could have imagined; she read each chapter twice and provided invaluable research support.

I feel very fortunate to have this book published by New York University Press. Ilene Kalish helped me throughout this project and patiently guided the book along. Aiden Amos and Alexia Traganas have also provided helpful support. Three anonymous reviewers were particularly helpful in shaping this book. The final version of this book is much improved because of the extensive hours they spent reviewing this manuscript.

This book would not have been possible without the support of mentors and professors who shaped my academic career. Most important, Tim Clydesdale’s research methods class inspired me to become a sociologist. It was one of the hardest and most rewarding classes that I took at The College of New Jersey. Tim spent an inordinate amount of time revising my papers, and I am certain that I would not have become a sociologist if I had not taken his classes. To him, I am incredibly grateful.

Conducting an ethnographic project is incredibly time consuming. I missed many important events because of travel and commitments to this project, and I thank my family and friends for their patience. I am particularly indebted to my partner, Kathleen Brown, for helping me finish this book. She read and commented upon multiple drafts of every chapter. Kathleen and I have begun to raise two beautiful girls since I began this project. I dedicate this book to both Ella and Alyssa.

1

A Taste of Life in the Nicaraguan Campo

During my first night in the campo (countryside), I was alert to unfamiliar sounds: a bat flew in and out of my room, roosters crowed throughout the night, and a woman pounded fresh corn tortillas before the sun rose. My room looked like it had been used for storage before being converted into lodging for fair-trade ecotourists. It was damp because of the dirt floor and the incessant rain. The wooden walls were dilapidated and almost transparent. Unlike our host families, who had no such protections, my fellow travelers and I slept under nets to protect us from mosquitoes carrying malaria and dengue fever.

I later learned that the rest of our group was also experiencing culture shock. Stacey and Alyssa woke to the sound of a pig being slaughtered; Mike was surprised to see young children carrying machetes to work the coffee fields; and Christopher, somewhat arrogantly, I thought, expressed frustration at the unsanitary way food was being prepared, asking, How much does bleach really cost? Why, I wondered, had these fair-trade activists paid more than $1,200 for the chance to stay here?

For ten days, I lived alongside fourteen travelers who wanted to learn more about Nicaragua and fair-trade coffee. Although there is not total agreement over the definition of fair trade, most supporters agree that fair trade is a social movement, not simply a brand. The most holistic definition of fair trade is endorsed by Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (often called Fairtrade International or FLO), the World Fair Trade Organization, the Network of World Shops, and the European Fair Trade Association, all of which are prominent fair-trade organizations:

Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency, and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers—especially in the South. Fair Trade Organizations (backed by consumers) are actively engaged in supporting producers, in awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practices of international trade.¹

We all signed up for this trip after hearing that Global Exchange hosts learning tours, or what it calls reality tours, to communities where fair-trade coffee is grown. (Global Exchange describes itself as a human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world.)² Five of the travelers were juniors and seniors from a progressive high school in Vermont. Their parents had sent them to live in Nicaragua for four weeks so that they could learn about the political economy of the region. Everyone on the trip knew about fair trade, but a few had signed up primarily so that they could experience life in a Spanish-speaking country. Our ages ranged from sixteen to sixty-four. Two participants were especially strong fair-trade advocates, most seemed to be aligned with left-leaning political groups, and everyone had previously traveled outside the United States. We arrived in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, in late December 2005 and traveled by bus to coffee-growing communities north of Matagalpa.

We lived in groups of twos and threes in the homes of the farmers. Each morning, we awoke at 6 a.m. My hosts, Bernabe and Maximina, whom everyone in the community referred to with the honorific titles don and doña, woke much earlier to prepare for the day ahead. On our first morning, we joined don Bernabe, his grandson, and his grandson’s friend to pick coffee in their nearby fields. We stopped along the way to eat carrots out of the ground, oranges from the trees, and some exotic fruits I had never seen before. It was a cool, quiet morning punctuated by the howls of monkeys sitting in the trees where we picked coffee cherries. (At this point in their growth, the beans are encased in a bitter-tasting pulp called a cherry.) After a few minutes of picking, I noticed two young girls staring at me and at my fellow gringo traveler, Christopher. They were don Bernabe’s granddaughters. One of the girls wore what I immediately assumed to be a donated pink dress that looked like it had been worn by a little ballerina; the other girl did not have any shoes. I guessed that their ages were about four and six but later learned that they were each three years older. They were in the fields to help us work but spent an equal amount of time playing. The two girls and don Bernabe’s other grandchildren ended up shadowing us throughout our visit. We picked coffee together, played baseball in the dense jungle, and competed in card games of Go Fish at night.

Our group’s itinerary, put together by Global Exchange, kept us busy: we met with union activists, toured a coffee plantation to see how it contrasts with a fair-trade cooperative, heard all about the coffee crisis, learned how coffee gets from the tree to our cups, and were inundated with stories about the benefits of fair trade. We were overwhelmed with facts, but, for me, the face-to-face interactions with fair-trade coffee farmers had a greater impact on how I viewed this system of trade. Playing with the young children, eating with our host families, and sharing stories with coffee farmers all were memorable experiences and fostered a growing allegiance to fair trade.

By the end of the ten-day trip, I was physically exhausted and emotionally drained. I had never before seen levels of poverty like those in both the towns and the countryside of Nicaragua. In Matagalpa, a bustling town in the mountainous northern region of the country, we saw countless children begging in the street when they could have been in school. In the campo, we saw malnourished children and met with parents working tirelessly to keep their kids healthy. In both locations, we saw starving stray dogs that acted as a haunting reminder of the ever-present poverty.

I feared I would not be able to explain to my family and friends what I had seen. On the flight home, I was thinking about these issues when the young woman sitting next to me, Harriet, told another passenger that she was working at an international nongovernmental organization (NGO) located in northern Nicaragua. She had not traveled with our group, and I was surprised to learn that she had extensive knowledge of coffee production and fair trade. I struck up a conversation and asked Harriet how she was able to explain to others how fair-trade benefits coffee farmers.

Harriet said she had moved to Nicaragua in 2002 after finishing college. Around the same time, the price of coffee plummeted to forty-one cents a pound, a one-hundred-year low.³ The price did not consistently return to more than a dollar a pound until late 2006.⁴ This coffee crisis devastated farmers around the world. In Central America, plantation owners stopped paying their coffee pickers because it was costing more to grow the coffee than owners could earn by selling it. Malnutrition, already a problem, reached epidemic proportions. Young children could not get enough to eat, and hundreds of thousands of people migrated to cities, where they were often unable to find work.⁵

Harriet was living with a family that grew coffee when the youngest son became gravely ill. He was malnourished, and the family did not have access to health care. Seeing this six-year-old boy die greatly affected Harriet, but nothing had prepared her for the reaction of the boy’s older brother, who jokingly said, At least this means there will be more food for the rest of us.

Upon returning home, the activists from my trip told similar, though often less dramatic stories about poverty, life in the campo, and the impact of fair trade. They viewed the trip as a success because they had gotten a firsthand glimpse of how fair trade benefits farmers. As an ethnographer who is trained to systematically study culture, I had a harder time processing what I had seen. I kept asking myself, What kind of researcher studies a place for only ten days and comes to any meaningful conclusions? So, about a month after I left Nicaragua, I began to contact my fellow travelers to ask about the trip’s effect on them. I learned that many had written letters to their local newspapers. Others had petitioned their local supermarkets to carry fair-trade coffee. And still others had given PowerPoint presentations to their coworkers, churches, and elementary schools about the benefits of buying fair-trade-certified products. Even the traveler who had been most skeptical about fair trade became a strong supporter.

I began to understand that my initial search for objectivity had been foolish. Instead of trying to determine how beneficial fair trade is for coffee