Repaso: Ethical branding; Garrels documentary; evangelicals & corruption; gender & poverty in Latin America

1. The future of ethical branding
Ethical Corporation has an interesting look at Fairtrade International (FLO) and its somewhat complicated relationship with Fair Trade USA:

FLO was already embroiled in controversy because its affiliated but independent American operation, Fair Trade USA, announced last autumn that it was cutting ties with the mother organisation as part of what it called a progressive reform of its labelling strategy. It now offers designation to larger private operations, mostly coffee plantations, and has lowered the required minimum fair trade component to as little as 10% from 20%. Fair Trade USA says the changes will encourage corporations to adopt ethical standards, which will seed change and directly benefit far more poor farmers and workers than the current system. The organisation believes sales will double in three years.

2. The Sea In Between
You probably know how much I love the music of Josh Garrels. His record “Love & War & The Sea In Between” was my favorite album of last year, and others happened to agree. Also, it’s still available for free. Here’s a trailer for a new “documentary performance film” in which Garrels and Mason Jar Music travel to British Columbia “to build music from the ground up.” It looks so amazing.

3. Evangelicals and corruption in Latin America
This week, thanks to John Mulholland, I learned about the research being done by Rachel McCleary on the political economy of religion. I was particularly fascinated with her work on evangelicals and their relationship to cultures plagued by corruption, which reminds me a lot of what Kevin Lewis O’Neill had to say in City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala. Here’s a blurb from McCleary:

Evangelicals in Latin America display strong cultural dichotomies in their actions: religious versus secular, tithing to God (diezmo) versus public financial matters, caring for family versus giving aid to strangers. Kinship-based social structures rather than society-wide procedures of fairness continue to dominate public ethos. We seek to investigate how Evangelical churches are institutional agents diffusing certain values in society that account for the emergence of new societal organizational structures combating corruption.

4. Poverty’s gender discrimination in Latin America
The Institute of the Americas takes a look at how poverty disproportionately affects the region’s women and children, and what can be done about it:

In Latin America, poverty has the face of a woman; poverty has the face of a child. Poverty affects Latin American women at a rate 20 percent higher than men. Poverty in children younger than 15 years old is twice that of adults, said Inés Bustillo, director of the Washington office of the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!

[Photo credit: guatemalancoffee.blogspot.com]