Paper short abstract:

Because the top three products sold as Fair Trade (bananas, coffee, and chocolate) coincide with some of the most exclusive products available only to elites under Soviet rule, introducing Fair Trade products in post-socialist contexts risks unknowingly paralleling past forms of exclusion.

Paper long abstract:

This article examines the shifting meanings of 'fair' in relation to food procurement strategies in

Latvia from Soviet times to the present. I juxtapose two different types of ethical or "fair" food

networks: the persistence of informal exchange networks for home-produced food items, and

recently introduced certified "Fair Trade" for importing exotic goods. I argue that positioning local

informal networks as illegal, and certified Fair Trade as ethical, obscures persistent unfairness and

inequality within Europe and stigmatizes local practices and social networks as backwards without

addressing the causes. Furthermore, because the top three products sold as Fair Trade coincide with

the most exclusive products available only to elites under Soviet rule (bananas, coffee, and

chocolate), Fair Trade in post-socialist contexts risks unknowingly paralleling past forms of

exclusion. Paradoxically, as the locally constructed idea of "fair" has become illegal, newly

introduced official "Fair Trade" products may remain exclusive and out of reach. This may make the

producers of these products from the Global South seem as remote as ever, despite their

increasingly similar problems with producers at home.