The focus of this study is on the role played by the Western third-world movement in the 1970s and 1980s. The African continent's share of total macroeconomic performance plummeted, and decades of lavish aid assistance payments ended up with Africa's ill-fated exclusion from world trade. How was it that instead of promoting trade, Africa was given foreign aid?
AbstractActivists throughout Western Europe joined Southern actors in demanding a reform of global trade during the 1960s. This forum focuses on the subsequent trajectories of fair trade activism: the initiatives which aimed to achieve equitable economic relations between the South and the North. The evolution of this movement is situated within larger debates about social movements since the 1960s. The forum demonstrates the importance of a transnational perspective, particularly the impact of the global South and European integration. It highlights fair trade's broad constituency and the contested development of its goals and repertoire. The movement's trajectories challenge us to reassess how activists attempted to shape a post-colonial world in which consumption had become a predominant fact of life. Regarding this strand of activism as part of crucial post-war developments provides a fresh perspective on the history of transnational civic activism.
