Beyond responsibility? Fair trade and citizenship

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate by means of a qualitative content analysis which models of citizenship emerge from the communication practices of four fair trade organizations: Oxfam-Worldshops, Fairphone, Trade for Development Centre (TDC) and Colruyt. Drawing on discourse theory, three forms of citizenship are distinguished: expanded, communitarian and agonistic. TDC and Colruyt expose the conditions of production in the Global South and encourage the consumption of fair trade products in the Global North (thus reflecting an expanded citizenship). In contrast, Fairphone aims to create a community and encourages members to communicate the alternative, the Fairphone smartphone (thus reflecting communitarian citizenship). Finally, Oxfam-Worldshops emphasizes the conflicts between the interests of farmers and consumers and those of multinational corporations, thereby encouraging citizens to protest unfair trade (thus reflecting agonistic citizenship). We conclude by highlighting the meaning of purchasing fair trade in the different models of citizenship.