In much of the world's economy, production, exchange and
consumption are regulated by the Market, which is widely believed
to be based on economic rationality and driven by a desire to
consume. But there are different views of how the Market operates,
or ought to operate. This collection of essays discusses a series
of alternative perspectives - manifested in ethical movements,
alternative consumer behaviour, and social corporate responsibility
initiatives - that seek to reveal the 'hidden hands' of power,
inequality and morality that shape Market exchange. Against the
impersonality of the Market, we find initiatives, such as local
food movements, that seek to re-embed commodity exchange in social
relationships. Against the idea of the open economy, we find
initiatives that seek to counter the ever-widening gap between
producers and consumers. Against increased extraction from less
powerful economic actors, we find ethical movements, such as Fair
Trade, that work to return a fair share of the price to producers
and workers. And, against the unfettered Market, we encounter a
move to re-regulate trade and protect those located in the most
vulnerable market positions. The volume engages with a range of
alternative ethical perspectives and the initiatives to which they
give rise. Twelve essays - all based on first-hand ethnographic
studies of alternative trade movements, corporate social
initiatives and consumer behaviour - provide the groundwork for
wide-ranging theoretical engagement and comparative analysis. The
case studies cover a range of places, commodities and initiatives,
including Fair Trade and organic production activism in Hungary,
CSR discourses in South Africa and Europe, Fair Trade coffee in
Costa Rica and handicrafts made in Indonesia. The essays contribute
to a series of current debates within the social sciences about
what drives alternative Market engagements, how they are understood
and represented by different actors, and what makes their outcomes
often ambivalent or contradictory. They address disjunctions
between discourses and practices, and internal inconsistencies
within ethical movements and corporate initiatives. The volume as a
whole engages with questions about morality and the economy, the
creation and circulation of value, and, ultimately, the possibility
of making alternatives work. In doing so, the contributors reveal
the many fields of power at work within the Market as well as
within the movements advocating more ethical economic
relationships. The volume will be of particular interest to social
scientists, business and management studies scholars, and a range
of practitioners.
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