The Governance of Social Standards in Emerging Markets: An exploration of actors and interests shaping Trustea as a Southern multi-stakeholder initiative

Langford, Natalie J.

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.06.009

Cited by 16 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Producer organisations and smallholder representatives are also included in the multi-stakeholder programme committee. Moreover, Trustea is an interesting case of a Southern MSI that aims at the market for domestic tea consumption in India rather than following South-to-North value chains (Langford 2019). This contrasts with the experiences of many global MSIs and their certification schemes, which often target commodities for international consumption, while neglecting domestic consumption in producing countries.…”

Section: Case Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thirdly, producers could only receive Rainforest Alliance certification if they had not cut forests since 2005 rather than banning deforestation from the day of certification. Finally, Rainforest Alliance had so far focused on certifying large tea estates, but had hardly any certification experiences in the increasingly important segment of small tea growers (Langford 2019).…”

Section: Emergence Of Trustea: a Dutch-inspired Initiativementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, Trustea exhibits elements of familiar engagement. This is based on the accentuation of Trustea as an Indian initiative-despite the fact that all the NGOs involved were Northern NGOs (Langford 2019). Yet, seeing that their staff members were (mostly) Indian, all actors that have driven Trustea's development share a common national identity.…”

Section: Regimes Of Engagement In Trusteamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, Trustea emphasised that it does not introduce new regulations for the Indian tea industry, but enforces and facilitates compliance with the existing-familiar-legal system. The prominence of local rules is supposed to enhance the acceptability of Trustea among producers (Langford 2019). This aligns with prior studies that note how Southern sustainability initiatives explicitly aim to position themselves as 'home-grown' initiatives (Schouten and Bitzer 2015; Sun and van der Ven 2020).…”

Section: Regimes Of Engagement In Trusteamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The empirical case for this paper is 'Trustea', an Indian multi-stakeholder initiative for sustainable tea launched in 2013, which aims at the domestic tea market (Langford 2019). By drawing on 'regimes of engagement' of pragmatic sociology (Thévenot 2007(Thévenot , 2011(Thévenot , 2014, the paper analyses how Trustea has engaged with different actors within a multi-stakeholder setting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Southern sustainability initiatives in agricultural value chains: a question of enhanced inclusiveness? The case of Trustea in India

Bitzer

Marazzi

2020

Agric Hum Values

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Recent studies have shed light on the emergence of Southern sustainability initiatives in commodity-based value chains. These initiatives position themselves as countering the exclusionary nature of many global multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), as critically analysed by previous studies. However, a common theoretical perspective on the inclusiveness of MSIs is still lacking. By drawing on the theory of regimes of engagement, we develop a theoretical framework which helps understanding the overt and subtle practices of including or excluding different stakeholders in MSIs. We apply this framework to ‘Trustea’, an Indian MSI for sustainable tea production, to further investigate the ‘inclusiveness paradigm’ of Southern sustainability initiatives. Our findings highlight the complexity of stakeholder engagement across the different phases of Trustea’s development, from initiation and code development to formal launch and roll-out. We find that different types of engagement can exist in parallel. Justifiable engagement is expressed in the participating organisations’ reference to a shared common goal of Trustea, whereas familiar engagement is linked to the rootedness of the individuals involved in the Indian tea industry. Strategic engagement, in turn, comes to the fore through the strong emphasis on developing an Indian code for sustainable tea production and promoting adoption among tea growers. The importance of reaching this objective has led to the replication of exclusionary patterns also noted for global MSIs, as small-scale producers and other weak actors have been largely excluded from decision-making processes, despite informal efforts aimed at substitution of representation.

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Section: Case Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Emergence Of Trustea: a Dutch-inspired Initiativementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Regimes Of Engagement In Trusteamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Regimes Of Engagement In Trusteamentioning

confidence: 99%