University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

that for Fairtrade to work it has to integrate into the mainstream and therefore use
these mainstream’s institutional settings as opposed to radically changing them.
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We have therefore uncovered a multiplicity of discursive positions taken by Fairtrade
actors. Reasons for this would, we suggest, lie in the historical, cultural and the
institutional context of the Fairtrade movement in different countries. We therefore
believe national institutional contexts should be taken into account in future research
in order to further investigate the extent to which national characteristics influence
Fairtrade identities. The emergence of a ‘mainstream’ discourse that is comfortable
with the involvement of large retailers, in line with the increasing strength of the
British Fairtrade market, seems grounded in concequentialist assumptions: large
retailers may be self-interested, but this does not prevent them from doing good. Our
findings suggest that a single Fairtrade discourse should not be assumed, that current
academic debate on ‘free versus fair’ does not capture the diversity of social and
discursive practices, and that as scholars we should be alert to the creation of new
norms, new rules, new ways of doing things.