Activity:

Roundtable discussion
The Journal InterCulture

FAIR TRADE

AND INTERCULTURAL REGENERATION OF THE COMMUNITIES

Date: Thursday March 12, 2009 from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Where:

Librairie Paulines
2653 rue Masson (corner of 2nd Avenue)
Montreal Qc H1Y 1W3
Tel.: 514-849-3585

“Fair trade introduces into the economic analysis an entirely new dimension which cannot be apprehended in the standard economy: the community.”

Stephen Marglin
Economist, author of The Dismal Science:
How Thinking Like an economist undermines community

This issue of InterCulture treats the question of Fair Trade from the point of view of its intercultural contents, i.e. the bio-cultural and community regeneration both in the South and in the North.

It presents two experiences that of the co-operative Oro Verde which contributed to the regeneration of a community destroyed by political violence and the drug trade in the area of Lamas (Peru), and that of the "Horizontal Chocosol Traders", a co-operative which built intercultural bridges between people in Toronto and in Oxaca, Mexico. The issue also has included an article on the current and possible future influence of the practices of fair trade on "bio-cultural regeneration" in Europe, as well as an interview with a member of Equiterre, on diversity and pluralism within the fair trade movement.

At this roundtable we shall address the following questions:

• What are the requirements for fair trade to become a true lever of intercultural regeneration in the communities involved?
• What place does inter-culture have in the Québécois initiatives of fair trade?

Discussants:

• Jean-Fréderic Lemay, Economist, researcher with Équiterre
• Michael Sacco, ChocoSol Co-Operative of Fair Trade (Oaxaca/Mexico-Toronto)

Moderator :

Frédérique Appfle Marglin, Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Smith College (Massachusetts) and member of the Editorial Board of the Journal InterCulture

Language : French and English

Suggested contribution : 5$

Information :
Marie Delaval at (514) 288-7229 / promotion@iim.qc.ca

With the financial support of