Last week I introduced some of the basic definitions and parameters of fair trade products and cooperatives. Now I would like to discuss an important cultural aspect of the fair trade movement. In today’s economy many people are cutting back on “non-essential” items. What is non-essential becomes an interesting question in the world of fair trade. I know there are many things I can, and do, go without. However, one thing I continue to consider as “essential” is crafts produced from fair trade cooperatives. If you think about the impact a slowing economy has on our own lives, consider how dramatic the impact is on an already poverty ridden region. We may need to curb our entertainment or travel, turn down our heat, dine in, or hold off on a new computer; in other words, we cut back on luxuries. But for many people in the world, our basics would be luxuries: a slowing economy for us can mean the possibility of starvation and other dire consequences.

Thus, many people ask why fair trade cooperatives produce “non-essential” items in the first place. How will this ever be financially stable or viable? What we must remember is that, unlike Western Culture, traditional crafts play a vital social and practical role in many societies. We are used to factory production of our daily wares such as clothing and utensils while indigenously, the production of these items, as well as ritual baskets, masks, and other ceremonial objects, is sacred and integral to their cultural existence. Poverty causes people to forsake their traditional ways. If we do not act as a world community, time-honored traditions, knowledge, and skills, even entire cultures, can be lost forever.

Western influences continually permeate the globe: the world is becoming homogenized. If we do not consider the preservation of traditional arts and customs as “essential” then we all perish; we lose pieces of our world’s history, ancient parts of our own heritage, and an expanded sense of our selves in relation to a world culture.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at 4:50 pm and is filed under Fairtrade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.