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

佛罗里达大学博士生艾莉森·M·凯特将在布伦达·H·查尔芬博士的指导下，研究公平贸易的影响，这是一种可持续发展的贸易而不是援助的方法，旨在通过与促进特定类型的生产、分销和消费做法相关的品牌来赋予全球南部边缘化的生产者权力。公平贸易是新道德经济的一部分，新道德经济将自己呈现为传统资本主义市场的替代品。研究人员将调查不同的群体如何能够在这个体系中协商他们的相对权力和利益；公平贸易对土地政策、劳工和财产关系的影响；以及这些局部影响是否反过来影响公平贸易运动。这项研究将集中在公平贸易南非(FTSA)财团上。具体地说，研究人员将调查FTSA最近实施的南南贸易战略，在该战略中，在南非生产的经过公平贸易认证的商品也将在南非销售。这一计划从根本上背离了公平贸易的创立战略，即从全球南部采购，在全球北部进行营销和消费。研究人员将采用混合方法论方法。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政策和做法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和国家之间以及全球南部生产者和消费者之间的合作政策和做法。定性和定量数据的收集将使研究人员能够在种族隔离后国家政策转变和不断演变的地缘政治结盟的背景下，研究农业劳动和生产关系。这项研究将通过调查道德经济运动在当代以市场为中心的全球化背景下的广泛影响，以及不容易被民族国家的传统观念所遏制的经济关系的扩散，为科学和人类学思想做出贡献。这项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.