In the public space of the developed countries, posters of children with darker skin colour needing or thanking our help are still everywhere. The poor looks like this when I was a child. They still look like this now that I have grown up. They probably will look the same for the next decades to come. During all this time the dialogue about helping poor people continues, have even permeated the business-consumption level. Perhaps, the capitalism we are living in has become so advance that it probably can take in all forms of subversion and transform them into business.
Fairtrade concentrates on cash crop. Materials that Europeans want and their colonies have been shaped to produce for centuries. Cash crop is not the reason for unfairness. Rather it is a result of the already unjust world system. Guaranteeing poor producers a minimum price of its production without getting people out of its trap will never lead people anywhere...
9 Oct 2010 saw the Fairtrade Supporter Conference taking place in London. The event have attracted a decent attendance rate. The hall was almost full. Speakers of the day included Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of Fairtrade Foundation, UK politicians, FLO representatives, entrepreneur who is now running a business using Fairtrade cotton (Abi Petit, Gossypium) and a producer representative (Andrew Ethuru, Cafédirect).
On the stage they reported, discussed the unfair cotton trade and gave out awards to active supporter groups. The event has placed a strong focus on cotton this year, with a note to a fairly new programme – Fairtrade and Fairmined Gold. It is obvious that after food, the fashion and jewellery industries are the two areas which Fairtrade, at least in the UK, is planning to expand to.
As much as the images of the world poor are saturating our visual space, the representation of them is rather monotone. We see the same face expressions. We hear the same stories. Always they are the stories, but not the storyteller.
While most people in the developed world seems to cheer on Fair Trade, some do pose serious questions about its operation, intention and possible negative impact. WORLDwrite, a educational charity based London, is one of them.
So far we have raised a lot of questions regarding the Fairtrade system and imagery. What does the Fairtrade Foundation think about them? This chapter records my interview with the Foundation's Creative Head, Mike Laloë.
In his thought provoking collection of visual essays Ways of Seeing, John Berger observes that “the painted poor” often smile.
“These people belong to the poor. The poor can be seen in the street outside or in the countryside. Pictures of the poor inside the house, however, are reassuring. Here the painted poor smile as they offer… They smile at the better-off… Such pictures assert two things: that the poor are happy, and that the better-off are a source of hope for the world.”
“More and more UK shoppers see Fairtrade as a simple, highly effective way to enable producers in the developing world to work their way out of poverty with dignity, receiving a decent return for their great produce and hard work.” (Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of Fairtrade Foundation)[4]
‘Simple’, indeed, as all we need to do is just shopping. But can it really lead people out of poverty? What is a “decent” return? What is “hard work”? How effective Fairtrade is? My study shows a picture much different from the cheerful anecdotes we usually hear or read about.
Within the last decade the Fairtrade labelling system has gained tremendous success. According to the Foundation’s 2008/2009 Annual Review, 7 out of 10 people in the UK recognise the FAIRTRADE Mark and over £700m was spent on Fairtrade certified products in 2008, a rise of over 40% since 2007. There are 489 Fairtrade Towns across the country. Together with the expansion of the brand, Fairtrade’s stories and visual language are also saturating all our possible spaces, both public (supermarkets, cafés, offices) and private (homes).
At a time when we hardly finish our grocery shopping without running into pictures of people from some developing countries, it is worthy to reassess what lies behind these images.
