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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.
Prices permeate contemporary life. From the cost of basic
foodstuffs in developing countries to the pay of CEOs in rich ones,
the question of the politics and ethics of pricing everything
through the market dominates public life. At the same time, we know
that dilemmas about how to value fairly, but also efficiently,
goods and services have been with us for more than two thousand
years, since the times of Aristotle in Ancient Greece. Through the
course of the centuries, important thinkers like Thomas Aquinas,
Adam Smith and Karl Marx all devoted considerable effort to try to
understand how prices could reflect the intrinsic worth of the
objects workers produce and exchange with other people. This is the
question of the "just price." This volume represents the first
systematic attempt to address this ancient debate through the use
of qualitative empirical research, particularly ethnography. The
volume comprises a substantial introduction that sets out the terms
of the debate, proposing four different approaches to the just
price, plus eight case studies based on fieldwork carried out in
four different continents (Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America),
ranging from topics such as fair trade, human rights and recycling,
to organic agriculture, the rose oil industry, rural and urban
marketplaces. Bringing together the most recent scholarship in
economic anthropology and associated fields to investigate the
social, political and ethical consequences of market prices on
ordinary people, this book is of interest to researchers in
anthropology, sociology, history and geography.
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.
Concern about our food system is growing, from the costs of
industrial farming to the dominant role of supermarkets and
recurring scandals about the origins and content of what we eat.
Food for Change documents the way alternative food movements
respond to these concerns by trying to create more closed economic
circuits within which people know where, how, and by whom their
food is produced. Jeff Pratt, Peter Luetchford and other
contributors explore the key political and economic questions of
food through the everyday experience and vivid insights of farmers
and consumers, using fieldwork from case studies in four European
countries (France, Spain, Italy and England). Food for Change is an
insightful consideration of connections between food and wider
economic relations and draws on a rich vein of anthropological
writing on the topic.
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