Doctoral Dissertation Research: Negotiating the Spaces of Fairtrade in South Africa

佛罗里达大学博士生艾莉森M。Ketter，由Brenda H. Chalfin将研究公平贸易的影响，公平贸易是一种贸易而非援助的可持续发展方法，旨在通过与促进特定类型的生产，分销和消费实践相关的品牌来增强全球南方边缘化生产者的能力。公平贸易是新道德经济的一部分，它将自己作为传统资本主义市场的替代品。研究人员将调查不同群体如何能够在这个系统中谈判他们的相对权力和利益;公平贸易对土地政策，劳动和财产关系的影响;以及这些地方效应是否反过来影响公平贸易运动。该研究将侧重于南非公平贸易联盟（FTSA）。具体而言，研究人员将调查FTSA最近实施的南南贸易战略，在南非生产的公平贸易认证的商品也将在南非销售。这一计划彻底背离了公平贸易的创始战略，即从全球南方采购，在全球北方进行营销和消费。研究人员将采用混合方法。数据将通过参与者观察、半结构化访谈、结构化访谈、调查和档案研究获得。研究人员将分析这些数据，以确定1）FTSA政策和实践如何影响南非的农业转型和农村生计; 2）FTSA如何影响全球公平贸易模式以及各国之间以及全球南部生产者和消费者之间的合作政策和实践。收集定性和定量数据将使研究人员能够解决农业劳动和生产关系，在种族隔离后的国家政策转变和不断演变的地缘政治联盟的背景下。这项研究将有助于科学和人类学思想，通过调查道德经济运动的广泛影响，在当代市场的背景下，有重点的全球化和经济关系的扩散，这些经济关系不容易被传统的民族国家概念所控制。该研究还支持研究生的教育。

University of Florida doctoral candidate, Alison M. Ketter, supervised by Dr. Brenda H. Chalfin, will examine the impacts of fairtrade, a trade-not-aid approach to sustainable development that aims to empower marginalized producers in the global south through branding associated with the promotion of specific kinds of production, distribution, and consumption practices. Fairtrade is part of the new moral economies, which present themselves as alternatives to conventional capitalist markets. The researcher will investigate how different groups are able to negotiate their relative power and interests within this system; the effects of fairtrade on agrarian policy, labor, and property relations; and whether these local effects in turn affect the fairtrade movement. The research will be focused on the Fairtrade South Africa (FTSA) consortium. Specifically, the researcher will investigate FTSA's recently implemented south-south trade strategy, where fairtrade certified goods produced in South Africa will also be sold in South Africa. This program is a radical departure from the Fairtrade founding strategy of sourcing from the global south for marketing and consumption in the global north. The researcher will utilize a mixed methodological approach. Data will be obtained via participant observation, semi-structured interviews, structured interviews, surveys, and archival research. The researcher will analyze these data to determine 1) how FTSA policy and practice affect agrarian transformation and rural livelihoods in South Africa; and 2) how FTSA affects the global fairtrade model and cooperative policies and practices among states and between producers and consumers in the global south. The collection of qualitative and quantitative data will allow the researcher to address agrarian labor and production relations, within the context of post-apartheid national policy transformations and evolving geopolitical alignments.This research will contribute to science and anthropological thought by investigating the broad impact of moral economy movements in the context of contemporary market-focused globalization and the proliferation of economic relations that are not easily contained with traditional notions of the nation state. The research also supports the education of a graduate student.