Comercio Justo and Justice - Stenn 1 Tamara Stenn, DA Member URPE/IAFFE/ASHE Keene State College, Keene, NH, USA Adjunct Professor: Integrative Studies: Fair Trade, Economics Cell: 802-579-3386 E-Mail: tstenn@keene.edu Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession (CSMGEP) 2011 Southern Economic Association Annual Meetings Comercio Justo and Justice: An examination of Fair Trade and its effect on indigenous, Latina women and the family. This paper examines the impact of Fair Trade on indigenous Bolivian women. Grounded in the works of Amartya Sen and supported by other philosophers and economists, it looks at the gender, ethnic, and quality of life elements of Fair Trade. I explore Fair Trade as a form of justice and seek to understand it as a transformational model of development. The intellectual merit of this paper is to examine how gender and ethnicity effect participation in globalization and development. The broader scope is to create a dialogue around the ethnic feminist experience to expand the understanding of economic development. An Economic View of Fair Trade Fair Trade is a form of commerce developed in the 1960s by American and European organizations as a way to promote cultural and environmental sustainability and bring greater economic return to marginalized producers. It is a tool for creating economic justice and building freedom though cooperation and solidarity. It is supported by producers who voluntarily embrace the guidelines of Fair Trade by working together cooperatively, sharing resources, improving product quality, and providing transparency. Fair Trade is also supported by consumers who embrace its socially responsible values by purchasing Fair Trade products. Fair Trade is largely understood as a way of providing disadvantaged producers with fair wages based on the goodwill of “ethical” consumers paying a “Fair Trade premium” for goods provided through well meaning Fair Trade organizations. An ethical consumer is one who rationally chooses to value deeds over money and will pay more (a premium) for a product they deem as supporting a good deed (such as fair trade). Using orthodox economic theory, critics