Fair trade laws, labels and ethics

Abstract

The fair trade movement is arguably one of the most successful social movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. A key goal of the movement is to offer both a theoretical and practical alternative to the existing power relations in global trade which are argued to structurally disadvantage producers in the global south. Fair trade can be seen as a response to systemic harms and injustices caused by the global food production and distribution system to the people involved in the food industry – rather than instances of food adulteration and the misrepresentation of food quality highlighted elsewhere in the food crimes literature. While championing the agenda of global trade reform alongside anti-globalisation, ethical consumption, and anti-sweatshop activists, fair trade has offered a practical alternative for structurally disadvantage food producers to take direct action against the hegemonic forces of ‘free trade’.

Upward Transition of Indian Entrepreneurs: from Simple Working to Ethnic Entrepreneurship. A Case Study in an Italian Region

“…Moreover, in agricultural sector, high rates of informality may be found. But, differently from other cases, where informality may represent an opportunity (Chreneková et al, 2016), here informality is linked to illegality, with foreign workers obliged to operate in difficult conditions (Barbieri et al, 2015;Low and Davenport, 2018;Anderson et al, 2006). Recent episodes in the province under study have shed a light on the phenomenon of illegal hiring of workers, well known as "caporalato".…”