| Summary: | Fair Trade has attracted attention as the source of a new international
moral economy. The practice of international Fair Trade movement has been in
existence for about 70 years. On May 29
th
2013, at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the
representatives from organizations of 48 different countries in five continents
coming together during the Global Fair Trade Week held by World Fair Trade
Organization (WFTO). They declared some new and very important statements,
recognizing that the Fair Trade and solidarity economy movement has grown and
highly diversified at a global scale. They want stronger participation and social
control in international, bilateral and multilateral treaties and agreements. They
encouraged to be recognized by states through affirmative public policies,
emphasize the need to promote trade relations between the Fair Trade producer
organizations and governments at its different levels and institutions.
Faced by those ambitious goals, critics and scepticisms have raised. Fair
Trade has inherent dilemmas as a commercial business model and -at the same
time- as a progressive social movement. This market orientated approach leads to
questioning whether a social movement that challenges the dominant neo-liberal
trade regime and operates within its global trade system can really provide
counter-hegemonic changes. This article is trying to present a theoretical
framework based on Neo-Gramscian�s political theory of hegemony, analysing
how Fair Trade could bring a counter-hegemonic approach as a response to neo
liberal free trade regime. Constructing social knowledge, understanding political
concepts and the different methods of attaching meanings to them is needed for
the clarity of Fair Trade movement to engage its further strategies.
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