The fair trade in contemporary France. Ideologies and practices. A book of Virginie Diaz Pedregal (L’harmattan, coll. “Logiques sociales “, 2007, 268 p.)
The trade fair, today the entire world believes to know what it is. More specifically, three French out of four have “beyond heard” according to a poll carried out by IPSOS in 2006. This recent popularity, which owes much to the work of media coverage of different actors (journalists, activists, policy), must not make us forget the historical progression of this movement. Indeed, Virginie Diaz Pedregal recalls in the introduction to his book, that the logic of ” fair trade “, based on the idea to make it more fair international trade through the establishment of new rules of exchange in the break with those of the dominant economy, has existed since the 1940s. It will be noticed that this objective is also one of the center points of the groups as anti-globalization, those who enjoyed a growing visibility on the issues related to globalization and its effects on North-South relations. In this context, the popularity of fair trade is related to its logic : “act local, think global “, puts at the centre of its action the desire of consumers wishing to break with the logic of predatory of North-South trade. However, it does not break completely with the logic of the market, but introduces that of reciprocity, of gift. Its action focuses on the sharing of added value, giving a greater share to producers. The interest of this work is to give to understand the construction process and the issues of multiple fair-trade, which, of course, are not restricted to images controlled and directed by the marketing advisors.
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