Critical+Theory+-+Stephanie

1) My first example of critical theory is the practice of buying and selling "fair trade" coffee. This makes an excellent example because the practice of fair trade seeks to transform the practice of buying/selling in order to liberate those who were being treated unfairly. In this case the oppressed are the farm workers, owners, and coffee vendors in developing countries and the oppressors are the developed countries and businesses who purchase this coffee. These workers are exploited because they do not earn a fair price, on international scale, for the goods they sell. [|Alterra's website] explains that the process of buying and selling fair trade coffee was "//designed to help small-scale farmers in developing countries earn more money for products that are consumed in the developed world, Fair Trade is a business model that promotes direct trade linkages, higher incomes and standards of living, and positive socio-economic development..cooperatives// [farmers/landowners, etc.] //are eligible to sell through the Fair Trade market and receive at least the Fair Trade minimum price, thereby bypassing the intermediaries who traditionally have taken advantage of them//". This is directly in line with critical theory. As we discussed in class after reading Willmott "critical science is concerned to reveal how patterns of behaviour and meaning are embedded in oppressive structures of domination that, potentially, are open to challenge and change" (p.101). Developed countries are at an advantage. To use Willmott's word, they //dominate// international economic activity and trade. In short, fair trade is an attempt to "challenge and change" the practice of paying unfair, oppressive prices by developed countries to undeveloped countries for their coffee.

Notes: While there are a number of fair trade coffee vendors in the US, I've highlight Milwaukee's own Alterra for this example. For a more detailed and historical definition of fair trade visit this [|wikipedia article].

2) My second example of critical theory comes from a specific organization, the company [|Better World Books] . In their own words, this business"//collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide...//[we] //create social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders".// Like the example above, this organization's intent is to emancipate/free those who are oppressed. The oppressed people are those, world-wide, who cannot read. Often times we (who are highly educated members of a developed country) take advantage of the fact that we can read and that most of us had the opportunity to learn to do so at a young age. When we go shopping for books in stores or order books online rarely are we thinking about people who, for whatever reason, cannot read. It becomes what Anderson calls a "non-event". It is not constructed as part of our social reality (p.40). On a day to day basis we are not thinking about the advantage that being literate provides us, nor are we thinking about the disadvantage of many who are illiterate. Anderson argues that the first step to making non-events visible realities is purely to recognize the non-events as legitimate events (p.41). In other words, how can you solve a problem if you do not even see that that problem exists? The Better World Books company connects buying books with literacy advocacy. Not only does buying a book from thier site make the buyer aware of the worldwide problem of illiteracy, but it also gives the buyer an avenue to do something about it. (I highly recommend this site. It's prices are as good, if not better than amazon. I used this site to buy used copies of our texts for this class!)

Critical Theory