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142 Sarah Lyon of recycled coffee bags. None of these products is made by the wives of cooperative members. It is understandable that this corporation, which is routinely celebrated for its commitment to environmental and social responsibility, has chosen to spread its wealth and business investments across a variety of impoverished Guatemalan communities rather than supporting one lone cooperative. However, this means that, like their other efforts, the female cooperative members’ attempts to cultivate these market relationships are failing. Conclusion It is not necessarily the aim of the fair trade movement to offer handouts , whether in the form of financial donations or market opportunities, to producers. Rather, the movement aims to provide producers with the skills, information, and contacts necessary for them to locate and maintain their own market opportunities. In this case, it is clear that fair trade is providing these things to male cooperative members but not to their female counterparts. The women’s attempts to locate a market of their own have been thwarted by their lack of language skills, discomfort in speaking with foreigners, and unfamiliarity with business administration norms. Fair trade could help promote gender equity in certified cooperatives by providing more specific guidelines for training and skill development. Furthermore, if fair trade certifiers were to adopt a participatory social auditing model, which places emphasis on the involvement of workers and workers’ organizations in the process of code implementation and assessment (Auret and Barrientos 2006), they would be better able to identify the specific needs of male and female cooperative members and perhaps work with organizations to set locally appropriate goals for gender equity (Lyon 2008a). Participatory social auditing works to develop partnerships between different actors (such as management, members, and auditors) and a locally suitable approach to improving conditions and promoting gender sensitivity. Snapshot audits tend to focus on formal management compliance rather than helping to support genuine improvement. As a result , they tend to pick up visible issues, such as health and safety, but often fail to pick up issues that are not easily verified, and they are often insensitive to issues of concern to women workers (Auret and Barrientos 2006). A participatory form of social auditing would help ensure the promotion of gender equity within the fair trade coffee movement and would substantially improve the effectiveness of the existing certification A Market of Our Own 143 standards. A simple first step would be to require certifiers to speak to a broad range of cooperative members and their wives (since fair trade certifies family farms, not individuals). By speaking to women, certifiers could easily ascertain that women have in fact never served on the board of directors or filled a managerial position at the cooperative. The discussions could be used to identify women’s needs, such as a market of their own and more equality, and help pinpoint ways to attain these goals. This chapter raises a critical issue facing the fair trade movement, which is currently grappling with the role of women in producer communities : what these women want most is a market for their products. They are not pursuing an abstract notion of gender equity that mirrors the concerns and goals of Northern consumers; rather, they are seeking to improve their well-being through locally appropriate channels. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate (especially those by Moberg, Besky, and Dolan), gender roles are socially and culturally determined, and therefore they vary radically among the communities participating in fair trade networks . This reality poses a challenge to the fair trade movement, which, as this chapter argues, needs to develop a gender-sensitive approach that is flexible enough to accommodate highly variable local contexts and yet strict enough to effect real change. N o t e s 1. This research was generously funded by the University of Kentucky Summer Faculty Research Fellowship, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and Fulbright-Hayes. I thank Mark Moberg and four anonymous reviewers for their comments during the revising process. 2. All subjects are identified with pseudonyms. 3. http://www.greenmountaincoffee.com/Accessories/Coffee-Wrap-Purses, accessed June 16, 2008. W o r k s C i t e d Allison, M. 2006 A Cup o’ Joe That’s Making a Difference. Seattle Times, August 12. Available through TransFair USA, Fair Trade News, http://www.transfairusa.org/content/ about/n_060812.php. Auret, D., and S. Barrientos 2006 Participatory Social Auditing: Developing a Worker-Focused Approach. In Ethical Sourcing in the Global Food System. S. Barrientos...

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