Buying into Fair Trade: Culture, Morality, and Consumption

6. The Great Recession and the Social Significance of Buying into Fair Trade

>> 121 6 The Great Recession and the Social Significance of Buying into Fair Trade I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. . . . To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world. . . . Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment . . . but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. —Howard Zinn, 2004 When I began this book, I sought to understand the pathways to participation in the fair-trade movement. I was also curious as to why individuals want to support producers living halfway around the globe when there are so many pressing social problems closer to home. I was interested in the ways people discuss moral issues, and I wanted to figure out how individuals make sense of the contradictions between their ideals and their everyday purchases. Mainstream theories of consumer culture and social movements provided the framework for examining many of these issues. But I kept struggling to make sense of a relatively undertheorized part of fair trade—the activities, beliefs, and impression-management strategies of actors at the periphery of the movement. Within consumer-dependent social movements, conscientious consumers occupy an especially important position. Their purchasing power largely determines the financial returns that are directed toward specific causes. The limits and possibilities of conscientious 122 > 123 number of people. Although these movements all depend on a relatively small group of activists, store owners, and consumer advocates to set the direction of the movement, the ability of these markets to raise funds for charitable causes is contingent on the purchasing power of a much wider range of individuals. Thus, it is important to understand the impact of small acts by consumers who are often only minimally committed to changing the world through shopping. Before addressing this issue, I explain how Philadelphia’s fair-trade market survived through the Great Recession. I finished gathering data for this book right before the financial and housing markets collapsed at the end of 2008. The next section provides a brief overview of how the Independents Coffee Cooperative and Ten Thousand Villages coped with the changes resulting from the Great Recession. These changes yielded some important insights into the limitations and possibilities of small acts as a mechanism for social change. Philadelphia’s Fair Traders after the Great Recession In the fall of 2005, I was hanging out in Joe Coffee Bar on a sunny afternoon . The store was largely empty, with only two other customers, both typing away at their keyboards. Joe saw me sitting alone in the corner and came over to talk about closing his store in the near future. He compared the end of his store to the death of Rasputin. Grigory Rasputin (1869–1916) was a Siberian peasant who became a trusted adviser to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his wife, Alexandra Fedorovna. Joe explained, First he was poisoned, but it didn’t take. At dinner, he was poisoned again, but he continued to carry on in a similar manner—dancing and acting normal. He was then shot twice and knocked to the ground. After falling unconscious, he got up and was stabbed at least twice. He refused to die. He was then dragged to a pond, where he was held underwater until he drowned. But some people say he still lives today. As if trying to convince me that he wasn’t crazy, Joe smiled as he finished his story, saying, “Okay, I really do think he is dead.” Positioning himself as constantly under attack allowed Joe to play 124 > 125 foodies drawn to its local, organic, and cruelty-free menu. The owners of Mugshots also bought a café in Manayunk (a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city), which they have managed to make profitable . In the fall of 2011, however, one of the owners felt the store was not growing sufficiently and decided to close that location. Mugshots also received a large development grant from the city of Philadelphia, which allowed it to open yet another...