Draft chapter for book Food Transgressions: Making Sense of Contemporary Food Politics, edited by Michael Goodman and Colin Sage – please do not cite without permission of authors 1 Pathways of transformation or transgression? Power relations, ethical space and labour rights in Kenyan cut flower value chains Valerie Nelson, Anne Tallontire, Maggie Opondo, Adrienne Martin 29 th July 2010 Count: 7, 630 (without footnotes; 8,409 with footnotes) Abstract This chapter explores the potential of multi-stakeholder standards initiatives (MSIs) to open up new spaces for engagement between the private sector, trade unions, NGOs and others for dialogue and action to promote labour rights. We focus primarily on an MSI in Kenya, HEBI. MSIs in agri-food chains represent a new form of ethical policy space, which are being created at multiple levels and locations, primarily because of processes at an international level. Through our analysis of the power dynamics in Kenyan cut flowers, we seek to build up an understanding of the politics of specific MSIs, and broader trajectories of transgression into corporate activity and vice versa. Despite momentum leading to increased participation in governance in public policy, the creation of ‘invited’ or ‘claimed spaces’ on their own cannot alter power or change the status quo; in the context of significant power imbalances the potential of MSIs to effect change is severely limited. This is because overarching power relations shape the space – sometimes leading to the sidelining of alternative voices. The private sector is not monolithic and there are divergences of approach, yet ethical sourcing and stakeholder engagement in these spaces is not yet, nor is it likely to lead to a transformation of worker rights. In a context of such significant power inequalities in value chains, more powerful actors tend to control social discourse and material resources, shaping the outcomes of new spaces in their own interests. This will continue to be the case whilst support is lacking for workers, smallholders and local communities to articulate their own narratives about ethics in value chains. Introduction In the widespread trend for more participatory governance in public policy and planning (Cornwall and Coelho 2007; Nelson 2008; Gaventa and Mayo 2009), novel forms of engagement between private authority and civil society are also emerging in, for example, the development of private standards and monitoring systems (Giovannucci and Ponte 2005; Busch and Bain 2004). This chapter focuses on participation in private sector and value chain governance. In the late 1990s international NGOs and trade unions engaged with large retailers and brands to improve the content and implementation of labour codes, which had been initially written by companies in response to media, NGO and trade union pressure (Barrientos 2000, Hughes et al. 2007). The participation of private sector, trade unions, and NGO representatives and government observers in multi-stakeholder initiatives theoretically represents a new opportunity for improving the development and implementation of labour standards in global value chains (Tallontire 2007).