Translating Fair Trade: Negotiating Identity, Tradition, and Language Use in the Production and Distribution of Peruvian Handicrafts

Abstract

Fair trade offers an alternative market for handicraft producers in Peru, connecting them to buyers in the Global North. This market connection means that formerly utilitarian and traditional handicrafts must now satisfy the changing desires of consumers with whom artisans have no direct contact. In this dissertation, I examine the connections between Peruvian artisans and Northern importers as mediated through Manos Amigas (MA), a fair-trade handicrafts-distributing organization based in Lima. From its intermediary position in the fair-trade network, MA aims to design products that will sell to Northern clients while supporting Peruvian artisans—many of whom are Quechua-speakers and Andean migrants—and adhering to the principles of MA’s fair-trade certifier, the World Fair Trade Organization. The dissertation is based on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork involving participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of audio and audio-visual recordings of product-innovation meetings, clients’ visits with artisans, and other interactions. I examine the ways in which, and the extent to which, MA, through its implementation of fair trade, translates fair-trade principles into practice, supports the use of indigenous languages and artisanal traditions, and fosters transparent communication. I find that artisans are quite often excluded from important fair-trade conversations. In product-innovation meetings that involve MA staff members, Northern clients, and only sometimes artisans, the participants negotiate such product attributes as tradition, authenticity, “Peruvianness,” and desirability. Through my analyses, I demonstrate the varied meanings that these attributes have for different participants in fair trade. Even when artisans are included in meetings with Northern clients, much of the talk that occurs is not translated into Spanish for the artisans’ benefit. Artisans’ speech, on the other hand, is often translated into English for clients’ benefit, making translation largely unidirectional. This contributes to the knowledge and experience of the Northern visitor but does not increase artisans’ understanding of consumer trends or of clients’ reactions to their products. Translation practices thus tend to perpetuate unequal relationships that keep artisans at a disadvantage. Manos Amigas offers an example, overall quite successful, of how fair trade can be implemented. There is always room for improvement, however—ways to uphold fair-trade principles more strongly and ways to support artisans more effectively. Throughout the dissertation, I indicate ways that fair trade and conventional trade are similar and present comparable pitfalls. Competition, discrimination, poverty, and ideologies of gender that tend to keep women from powerful and well-paying positions are some of the challenges that artisans consistently face. I demonstrate numerous ways that fair trade—through certification and auditing, flexible interpretation of fair-trade principles, unidirectional translation practices, and client control over product designs—perpetuates asymmetrical power relations and Southern dependence on the North.