Ethical Consumption

Portrayal of the Slow Food movement in the Australian print media Conviviality, localism and romanticism

by John Germov

John Germov
Lauren Williams
Maria Freij
ournal of Sociology, March 2011; vol. 47, 1: pp. 89-106.

Devouring the social appetite

by John Germov

Lauren Williams and John Germov
Australian Humanities Review
Issue 51, November 2011

There grows the neighbourhood’: Green citizenship, creativity and life politics on eco-TV

by Tania Lewis

Published in International Journal of Cultural Studies May 2012 vol. 15 no. 3

Transforming citizens? Green politics and ethical consumption on lifestyle television

by Tania Lewis

This is an electronic version of an article published in Continuum: Journal of Media &Cultural Studies (special issue on environmental sustainability) 2008, 22(2): 227-240.
The final version of the paper is available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10304310701864394#preview

Fair trade coffee: The prospects and pitfalls of market-driven social justice

by Gavin Fridell

The fair trade network in historical perspective

by Gavin Fridell

Fair Trade and Neoliberalism: Assessing Emerging Perspectives

by Gavin Fridell

Fair-trade coffee and commodity fetishism: the limits of market-driven social justice

by Gavin Fridell

The co-operative and the corporation: competing visions of the future of Fair Trade

by Gavin Fridell

Fair trade, free trade and the state

by Gavin Fridell

The Case Against Cheap Bananas: Lessons from the EU-Caribbean Banana Agreement

by Gavin Fridell

Coffee and Commodity Fetishism

by Gavin Fridell

Alternative Food Networks

by Michael Goodman

Ethical foodscapes?: premises, promises, and possibilities

by Michael Goodman

The mirror of consumption: Celebritization, developmental consumption and the shifting cultural politics of fair trade

by Michael Goodman

This paper explores the shifting cultural politics of development as expressed in the changing narratives and... more This paper explores the shifting cultural politics of development as expressed in the changing narratives and discursive transparencies of fair trade marketing tactics in the UK. Pursued through what I call ‘developmental consumption’ and the increasing celebritization of development, it is now through the global media mega-star that the subaltern speaks. After a more general discussion of the implications of the celebritization of development, specific analysis focuses on two parallel processes complicit in the ‘mainstreaming’ of fair trade markets and the desire to develop fair trade as a product of ‘quality’. The first involves improving the taste of fair trade commodities through alterations in their material supply chains while the second involves novel marketing narratives designed to invoke these conventions of quality through highly meaningful discursive and visual means. The later process is conceptualized through the theoretical device of the shifting ‘embodiments’ of fair trade which have moved from small farmers’ livelihoods, to landscapes of ‘quality’, to increasing congeries of celebrities such as Chris Martin from the UK band Coldplay. These shifts encapsulate what is referred to here as fair trade’s Faustian Bargain and its ambiguous results: the creation of increasing economic returns and, thus, more development through the movement of fair trade goods into mainstream retail markets at the same time there is a de-centering of the historical discursive transparency at the core of fair trade’s moral economy. Here, then, the celebritization of fair trade has the potential to create ‘the mirror of consumption’, whereby, our gaze is reflected back upon ourselves in the form of ‘the rich and famous’ Northern celebrity muddling the ethics of care developed by connecting consumers to fair trade farmers and their livelihoods. The paper concludes with a consideration of development and fair trade politics in the context of their growing aestheticization and celebritization.

Reading fair trade: political ecological imaginary and the moral economy of fair trade foods

by Michael Goodman

This paper begins to explore the changing political geographies of alternative development as practiced and envisioned... more This paper begins to explore the changing political geographies of alternative development as practiced and envisioned in the global South. Looking specifically at the growing movement and market for fair trade foods, this form of alternative development has become the moral business of latte drinkers and other reflexive consumers in Europe and the US. Fair trade attempts to reconnect producers and consumers economically, politically, and psychologically through the creation of a transnational moral economy. This re-connection is accomplished through material and semiotic commoditization processes that produce fair trade commodities. The semiotic production of these commodities and their traffic in particular ‘political ecological imaginaries’ is essential to the formation of ethical production-consumption links, acting to also politicize consumption and fair trade eaters. Fair trade’s moral economy rides the tension between the ethical relationships it fosters and the need for the wily characteristics of enterprise in the construction of transnational trade networks. Bringing recent work on moral geography to bear, constructing this moral economy is an attempt to facilitate a sense of ‘solidarity in difference’ in the experiences of global economic inequalities between North and South and growers and eaters. At the same time, fair trade networks look to produce an expansive ‘spatial dynamics of concern’ in the fashioning of ethical places of production and consumption. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the continuing dilemmas critical for fair trade and suggestions for further empirical study of fair trade provisioning and alternative development networks.

Corporate social responsibility as cultural meaning management: a critique of the marketing of ‘ethical’ bottled water

by Steffen Boehm

Brei, V. and Böhm, S. (2011) ‘Corporate social responsibility as cultural meaning management: a critique of the marketing of ‘ethical’ bottled water’, Business Ethics: A European Review, 20(3): 233-252.

To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic... more To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic implications of CSR for corporations and less on an evaluation of CSR from a wider political, economic and social perspective. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by critically engaging with marketing campaigns of so-called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough’s approach, we unfold a three-step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers’ tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands. Theoretically, we base our analysis on McCracken’s model of the cultural meaning of consumer goods, which, we argue, offers a critical perspective of the recent emergence of CSR and business ethics initiatives. We discuss how these marketing campaigns can be framed as historical struggles associated with neo-liberal ideology and hegemony. Our analysis demonstrates how such CSR strategies are part of a general process of the reproduction of capitalist modes of accumulation and legitimation through the usage of cultural categories.

Corporate power and the market: Automotive performance and the automobile industry

by Alan Listiak

Why do modern people consume as they do?

by Lavinia Ioana Udrea

Spotlight On... 'Waste: Uncovering the global food scandal'

by Anna Krzywoszynska

Extended review of Tristram Stuart's 2009 book 'Waste: Uncovering the global food scandal'

In a world where nearly one billion people are undernourished and hungry (FAO, 2010), and where unique natural... more In a world where nearly one billion people are undernourished and hungry (FAO, 2010), and where unique natural habitats are being destroyed to make space for growing crops, up to half of the food we make globally is wasted. Stuart's important book goes some way towards exploring the reasons behind this absurd situation, but leaves many important assumptions about change is social practice unexplored.