6th December – Helen Dixon and Felicity Butler – Fair Trade

Helen and Felicity will be speaking about the reality of fair trade through critical perspectives from their work and their current research in Nicaragua. They will address some of the issues involved in transforming food politics including wider issues of food sovereignty, gender equality, collective organisation, local participation and democracy. Helen and Felicity hope to engage in debate with HC members about how, within the context of neo-liberal globalisation, we might contribute to transforming relations in favour of sustainable green practices, community-led development and active citizenship, based on the principles of autonomy, social justice,  equality, accountability, and solidarity.

Helen Dixon is a British Nicaraguan feminist writer and translator, international community-led development consultant and social movement activist with 25 years of experience working in Nicaragua and with Latin America and the Caribbean women’s networks. She moved to the UK in 2011 and is currently working as an associate tutor and independent member of a consultancy team with the Institute for Development Studies, at the University of Sussex, as well as being engaged in writing a novel. 

Felicity Butler is a UK based expert on gender and Fair Trade. She lived and worked on these issues in Nicaragua for more than a decade as well as working for three major Fair trade companies in the UK: Equal Exchange, ETICO and TWIN TRADING. She has recently been awarded an MA with distinction by  Royal Holloway and is now doing PhD research on the unpaid work of women in Fair Trade supply chains topic in conjunction with The Body Shop and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).