In order to address the research questions identified, it was important to select a practically manageable case study of how fair trade has been operationalised in its incorporation within public procurement. The case study approach was a natural choice, given its recognised ability to empirically investigate “how” and “why”
questions (Yin 2009, pp. 10-11) in order to understand contemporary contextual phenomena in-depth; this is especially the case when the boundaries between the phenomenon and its wider context are not clearly evident (Punch 2008).
Working within the context of the UK, the examples of Wales and Scotland immediately emerged, as both devolved governments have made public pledges to become FTNs (as noted in Chapter Two). The identification of a devolved government also offered both more practical accessibility for research, as well as the opportunity to engage with the hypothesis that devolved administrations have more scope to develop governance for sustainable development (Meadowcroft 2007).
However, despite the core involvement of Wales in developing the FTN programme (Royles 2007; Townley 2009), the Scottish Government has actually been embedding a commitment to the FTN programme as part of their Int ernational Development policy; and made the country an excellent context for a case study investigation (Yin:
2009 47). Furthermore, it was identified early on in the research process that Local Authorities in Scotland were taking a variety of approaches to operationalise the procurement of fair trade goods, and this offered an excellent opportunity to empirically investigate the emerging research questions.
81 From this stage it was necessary to identify what data would be gathered, as clearly
“social research data must be collected purposefully” (Ragin 1994, p. 26). For this reason, literature concerned with interpretative policy analysis and the identification of a suitable community of stakeholders was drawn upon (for example Yanow 2000, p.
27). In particular, concepts such as Communities of Practice (Lave and Wenger 1991;
Wenger 1998) and Discourse Communities were useful – particularly given the centrality of language, and when such groups are viewed as “communities of competing producers, of interpreters and critics, of audiences and consumers, and patrons” (Wuthnow 1989, p. 16 my empahsis) of language.
Practically speaking, it was necessary to gather texts that reflect the understanding of individuals associated with the effort to integrate fair trade governance into public procurement. Conceptualising the scope of research through this lens allowed for the fact that given communities are not static or fixed around formal institutions (Wenger 1998, pp. 99 & 118-119). Indeed, theory proposed that participants constantly engage with other communities to transfer knowledge, meaning and practices between one community and another (Sense and Clements 2006, p. 7). As such the use of this thinking brings focus to the investigation without arbitrarily isolating a group of actors from the other communities that shape knowledge and practice in the realm of primary concern.
With this in mind, the main stakeholders concerned with the public procurement of fair trade goods in Scotland were identified. This process began with an initial informal interview with the Coordinator of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum (SFTF), who acted as a key ‘informant’47 as well as a ‘gatekeeper’ – i.e. an individual who provides access to people who share their interest in the issue under consideration.
Beginning at this node, a visual map of stakeholders was developed, which included all the relevant information about individuals as well as their relationship to one another48. When each stakeholder was interviewed, ‘snowballing’ was employed to identify other potential informants and once no new names were mentioned, it was
47 While some dis tinguish between respondents and informants (Powney and Watts 1987), the terms are used interchangeably in this thesis.
48 Unfortunately, this map cannot be provided in the Appendices as issues of anonymity make its reproduction somewhat complex.
82 assumed that the pertinent community had been identified. Obviously, this approach does not necessarily capture all those individuals in the wider population interested in the agenda of fair trade procurement but, through continual cross checking, offers the best approximation possible.
After an initial round of assembling data with key stakeholders in Scotland, it became clear that the policy community had potentially been influenced by the government’s involvement in the FTN programme. For this reason – and in- line with the observation that case studies should begin with only a “tentative definition of the unit of analysis” (Yin 2009, p. 30) – the scope of the investigation was expanded to prominent individuals involved in the development of this scheme. Such a research direction was also important in the light of Sonnino’s (2009, pp. 425-426) argument that, as creative public procurement strategies entail a definition of quality in their pursuit of the most economically advantageous purchase, it is important to understand the process by which such understanding is constructed by stakeholders.
Investigation into this phenomenon also confirmed the importance of the Fairtrade Foundation’s Fairtrade Town scheme in the development of the criteria for the FTN programme. For this reason, it was necessary to draw on the researcher’s pre-existing relationships with individuals at the organisation – established through attendance at events and consultancy work opportunities – to setup interviews with prominent individuals49. This relationship also opened access to the documents submitted by the nine Scottish areas (see Appendix 11 for a complete list) involved in the Foundation’s Fairtrade Town accreditation50.
Early on in the examination of public procurement of fair trade in Scotland, it became apparent that the Local Authority in East Dunbartonshire had undertaken particularly interesting work: although most of their procurement of fair trade was comprised of
49 It should be noted that work undertake with the Fairtrade Foundation during the research process concentrated on the development impacts of Fairtrade governance and did not relate to either public procurement or the Fairtrade Town scheme.
50 Given the relevance of school and university scheme run by the Fairtrade Foundation, documents pertaining to these could have also been analysed. However, given the need to manage relationships with key stakeholders such as the Fairtrade Foundation, the scope of documentation requested was focused on the Fairtrade Town initiative – and this extending this research scope is a possible direction for future research.
83 FLO certified products, the authority had also purchased “fairly traded”51 Malawian rice to use in schools as part of a wider educational project. Indeed, this example was identified during an interview at the Fairtrade Foundation as a standout example of Local Authority procurement. This case was also of interest because at the time of purchase, the rice carried no product or organisational certification and legitimised its status as “fairly traded” based on the social economy nature of the not- for-profit import organisation: Just Trading Scotland (JTS). This procurement arrange ment potentially offered an example of what the existing literature characterises as a ‘more radical’ version of fair trade practice (see Chapter Two), and, as such, provided the opportunity to respond to Tallontire’s (2009, p. 1009) request for more in-depth research of dedicated fair trade supply chains.
Furthermore, the example also offers insight into how public procurement might reinforce a more radical and thus less commercial approach to fair trade practice (Fisher 2009, p. 995). Indeed, it is widely acknowledged that exploring examples which deviate from dominant patterns render them more visible – and, as such, generates added research value (Ragin 1994, p. 41). After all, as far as Silverman (2005, p. 125) is concerned “who knows what might become important? Apparently trivial cases may, through good analysis, turn out to have far-reaching implications”.
Indeed, in the case of fair trade, Raynolds (2009, p. 1091) observes that the negotiated and contested nature of fair trade practices provide “important openings for alternative enterprises and relations”. As such, the case offers an opportunity for the identification of potential best practice for both public procurement and fair trade per se52.
The decision to focus the investigation on this seemingly marginal example widened the scope of data generation to the alternative trading organisation JTS, as well as to the international development organisation, Imani Development, which was supporting the trade relationship. In this respect, the research attempted to respond to
“the need to move away from a focus on fair trade as something that happens to
51 The term “fairly traded” is used by JTS to reinforce the fact that neither the production conditions of the rice nor the governance of the supply chain are certified by any external organisation.
52 It should of course be noted that investigation of marginal examples carries a tendency to promote their benefits (Becker 1967). However, measures to counter this were built into the research design (discussed below) while the overall value of such an investigation was considered to be overriding.
84 producers, rather as something that producers are part of and can shape” (Tallontire 2009, p. 1009). Finally, it became evident that this type of focus also offered the opportunity to address another gap: “the role of stakeholders in the Southern hemisphere as objects and subjects of private transnational governance” (Dingwerth 2008, p. 607).
For these reasons, the investigation was extended to Malawi and those involved in operationalising the fair trade concept in the producer country. Indeed, the extension of research to a multi-sited study at the international scale is appropriate and indeed necessary, when it is recognised, or suspected, that agency is not fixed in a unitary space or static in time (Hyndman 2001, p. 263). The extension of the research context required data to be obtained from the organisation responsible for the export of the rice, the National Association of Smallholder Farmers in Malawi (NASFAM), as well as the sub-group the Kaporo Small Farmers Association (KSFA), whose members produced the rice. Data was generated through interactions with representatives from these organisations and other stakeholders in Malawi during a 2 month trip at the end of 2009.
Finally, during fieldwork in Malawi it became apparent that the ‘blurring’ of diverse practices under the term fair trade was also a significant issue at the national and regional level in Africa—where a wider community was having a significant influence on practices within the country. For this reason, the investigation was again extended to stakeholders in Malawi and the southern African region by attending the week long Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Cooperation for Fair Trade in Africa (COFTA), which was held in Swaziland in May 2010. It was through this continual reassessment of the scope of research which led to the identification of discrete, yet clearly interrelated and overlapping communities within which the meaning of fair trade was identified to be negotiated by different stakeholders. This process is discussed in detail in Chapter Six.
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