ISTR Sixth International Conference Toronto, Canada / July 11-14, 2004 Contesting Citizenship and Civil Society in a Divided World

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The social representation of fair trade in a business student population
by
Luc K. Audebrand
HEC Montreal
Coauthors: Adrian Iacobus

The social representation of fair trade in a business student population Luc K. Audebrand, Ph.D. Student, HEC Montréal (luc.audebrand@hec.ca) Adrian Iacobus, Ph.D. Student, HEC Montréal (adrian.iacobus@hec.ca) Abstract : The fair trade phenomenon is a social innovation that is getting more and more recognition in the Western societies ever since it as been introduced three decades ago (Perna, 2000; Murray & Raynolds, 2000; Raynolds, 2000; Maseland & De Vaal, 2002). Its recent developments draw even more attention from consumers, profit and non-profit organizations, and governments (Strong, 1997; Dickson, 1997; Nicholls, 2002). As many civil society organizations seek to change the rules applied to international, institutional and civic relationships, most alternative trade organizations also seek to change the rules applied to international business relationships (Latouche, 2000; LeClair, 2002). They act as institutional entrepreneurs (Fligstein, 1997) and active minorities (Moscovici, 1976) in order to promote this alternative trade phenomenon and influence rule-makers. However, between alternative trade organizations and rule-makers, there are the citizens of a given community. Hence, in order to change those rules, it might be necessary to have a primarily understanding of the representations people make about a phenomenon such as “fair trade,” since the links between the social representations and the social practices are well-established (Abric, 1994).

A social representation is the elaboration of a social object (e.g., fair trade) by a certain community (e.g., students) in order to behave and communicate. Moscovici (1973) explained that social representations are “systems of values, ideas and practices with a two-fold function; first, to establish an order which will enable individuals to orientate themselves in their material and social world and to master it; secondly, to enable communication to take place amongst members of a community by providing them with a code for social exchange and a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and their individual and group history” (p. xiii). The aim of the social representation theory is to show how this elaboration is getting done and how consensus, conflict, and tension in a community contribute to the elaboration process (Moscovici, 1963; Farr, 1990). The social representation theory studies how everyday interpersonal interaction and communicative dynamics result in the emergence of collectively shared patterns of beliefs, values, and practices. The theory does not imply that actors sharing common references hold the same positions but it stipulates that it is important to investigate the organization of differences in positioning. Indeed, social representations are not monolithic and widespread beliefs through a given population. On the contrary, a social representation can reflect as much the convergence or divergence inside a given community. According to Duveen (2001), “the theory of social representations provides the interpretative framework both for making representations visible and for rendering them intelligible as forms of social practices” (p. 15).

Our research objective is to evaluate the social representation of fair trade in a business student population with a free-association procedure (Doise & al., 1992; Lebrun, 2001). Business students are foreseen as future managers or entrepreneurs, as well as citizens and consumers. Their social representation of fair trade or any other alternative trade movement is crucial to understand the future of the many rules in business relationships. Firstly, we are interested in understanding the systems of value, the ideas and the practices related to their social representation of fair trade. Secondly, we are interested in the way in which this community handles, distributes and represents its knowledge of fair trade. We will then be able to draw a representational field around the fair trade concept. Moscovici (2001) argues that “the purpose of all representations is to make something unfamiliar, or unfamiliarity itself, familiar.” (p. 37). This is done by anchoring and objectifying a given social object (e.g., fair trade). The anchoring process draws something foreign and disturbing into something which is classified and named, thus more familiar. The objectifying process gives a sense of reality to images, turns abstractions into something tangible. We will try to distinguish, according to the bi-dimensional model of social representations (Moliner, 2001), the two dimensions of the representational field: the structural dimension concerning the central vs. peripheral status of beliefs associated to fair trade, and the evaluative dimension concerning the positions taken towards these beliefs. Our research results will be the first step in order to understand how a given community reacts to the values promoted by alternative trade organizations and by which mechanisms these values are distributed.

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Farr, R. (1990). Social representations as widespread beliefs. In C. Fraser & G. Gaskell (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Widespread Beliefs, Oxford : Clarendon Press.

Fligstein, N. (1997). Social skills and institutional theory. The American Behavioral Scientist, 40, 397-405.

Latouche, S. (2000). De l’éthique sur l’étiquette au juste prix. Revue du MAUSS, 15, 346-358.

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Maseland, R., & De Vaal, A. (2002). How Fair is Fair Trade? De Economist, 150, 251-272.

Moliner, P. (2001). La dynamique des représentations sociales : pourquoi et comment les représentations se transforment-elles? Grenoble : Presses Universitaires de Grenoble.

Moscovici, s. (1973). Foreword. In C. Herzlich, Health and illness: a social psychological analysis. London : Academic Press.

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Moscovici, S. (1990). Social psychology and developmental psychology: extending the conversation. In G. Duveen & B. Lloyd (Eds.), Social Representations and the Development of Knowledge (pp. 164-185). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Murray, D., & Raynolds, L. (2002). Alternative trade in bananas: obstacles and opportunities for progressive social change in the global economy. Agriculture and Human Values, 17, 65-74.

Nicholls, A.J. (2002). Strategic options in fair trade retailing. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 30, 6-17.

Perna, T. (2000). La réalité du commerce equitable. Revue du MAUSS, 15, 359-372. Raynolds, L. (2000). Re-embedding global agriculture: the international organic and fair-trade movements. Agriculture and Human Values, 17, 297-309.

Rice, R.A. (2001). Noble goals and challenging terrain: organic and fair trade coffee movements in the global marketplace. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 14, 39-66.

Date received: September 29, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # camk-93.