Market Affections: Moral Encounters with Kenyan Fairtrade Flowers
This paper explores commodity exchange as a morally inflected practice, one that mediates competing tensions of greed and generosity, the sacred and profane, and affection and estrangement through the fairtrade flower. Using the UK–Kenya fairtrade flower commodity chain to examine the cultural econo...
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| Format: | Journal article |
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2007
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| _version_ | 1826279570471387136 |
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| author | Dolan, C |
| author_facet | Dolan, C |
| author_sort | Dolan, C |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This paper explores commodity exchange as a morally inflected practice, one that mediates competing tensions of greed and generosity, the sacred and profane, and affection and estrangement through the fairtrade flower. Using the UK–Kenya fairtrade flower commodity chain to examine the cultural economy of fairtrade, I suggest that like the charity business and the international development industry, fairtrade complicates the distinction between the sacred and secular and the gift and commodity as Northern consumers and NGOs weave webs of obligation through the medium of the market. Further, I argue that while fairtrade is predicated on values of partnership and interdependence, it also operates within commodity chains that advance liberal ethics as a mode of ‘governmentality’ over African producers, translating consumers' sympathy-based humanism into new technologies of regulation and surveillance. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:00:43Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:75d884e2-3fbe-48c7-9e8c-782390c18f71 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:00:43Z |
| publishDate | 2007 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:75d884e2-3fbe-48c7-9e8c-782390c18f712022-03-26T20:11:56ZMarket Affections: Moral Encounters with Kenyan Fairtrade FlowersJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:75d884e2-3fbe-48c7-9e8c-782390c18f71Saïd Business School - Eureka2007Dolan, CThis paper explores commodity exchange as a morally inflected practice, one that mediates competing tensions of greed and generosity, the sacred and profane, and affection and estrangement through the fairtrade flower. Using the UK–Kenya fairtrade flower commodity chain to examine the cultural economy of fairtrade, I suggest that like the charity business and the international development industry, fairtrade complicates the distinction between the sacred and secular and the gift and commodity as Northern consumers and NGOs weave webs of obligation through the medium of the market. Further, I argue that while fairtrade is predicated on values of partnership and interdependence, it also operates within commodity chains that advance liberal ethics as a mode of ‘governmentality’ over African producers, translating consumers' sympathy-based humanism into new technologies of regulation and surveillance. |
| spellingShingle | Dolan, C Market Affections: Moral Encounters with Kenyan Fairtrade Flowers |
| title | Market Affections: Moral Encounters with Kenyan Fairtrade Flowers |
| title_full | Market Affections: Moral Encounters with Kenyan Fairtrade Flowers |
| title_fullStr | Market Affections: Moral Encounters with Kenyan Fairtrade Flowers |
| title_full_unstemmed | Market Affections: Moral Encounters with Kenyan Fairtrade Flowers |
| title_short | Market Affections: Moral Encounters with Kenyan Fairtrade Flowers |
| title_sort | market affections moral encounters with kenyan fairtrade flowers |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT dolanc marketaffectionsmoralencounterswithkenyanfairtradeflowers |