Challenging Global Inequality in Streets and Supermarkets: Fair Trade Activism since the 1960s

Global economic inequality became a crucial issue of deliberation in the wake of post-war decolonisation. As the history of fair trade activism demonstrates, citizens across the world actively involved themselves with this issue. Since the 1960s, a global alliance of activists promoted economic justice. They urged fellow citizens to buy or boycott specific products, apply political pressure, and publicise injustices. As the movement developed new tactics to transform the global market and expanded the range of products and partners during the 1980s, the tension between moderate and radical approaches was supplanted by the question of whether fair trade primarily aimed at marginalised groups or universal standards of fairness.