In this paper some of the main reasons for a renewed examination of the relationships between globalisation, the state, and rural development are analysed. It is suggested that there is a need for conceptual development that will allow a study of transnational and regional ‘food networks’ and an analysis of how these networks are embedded in social and political processes and practices. The approach is deliberately integrative and broad based, with existing tensions in current literature identified.
A focus on crisis provides a methodological window to understand how agrarian change shapes producer engagement in fair trade. This orientation challenges a separation between the market and development, situating fair trade within global processes that incorporate agrarian histories of social change and conflict. Reframing crisis as a condition of agrarian life, rather than emphasizing its cyclical manifestation within the global economy, reveals how market-driven development encompasses the material conditions of peoples' existence in ambiguous and contradictory ways. Drawing on the case of coffee production in Nicaragua, experiences of crisis demonstrate that greater attention needs to be paid to the socioeconomic and political dimensions of development within regional commodity assemblages to address entrenched power relations and unequal access to land and resources. This questions moral certainties when examining the paradox of working in and against the market, and suggests that a better understanding of specific trajectories of development could improve fair trade's objective of enhancing producer livelihoods. We are grateful to Brigitte Cerfontaine, Sean Hawkey, Ena Salinas and Fatima Ismael Espinoza for time given generously to enable us to develop insight into experiences of fair trade in Nicaragua; also to five anonymous reviewers for their critical contributions in the development of this paper. All views expressed are those of the authors, who remain responsible for any shortcomings.
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