General
Alastair is a researcher at the ESRC Research Centre for Business, Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society and the School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University. His work concerns the use of Fair Trade governance by public authorities to achieve the objectives of Sustainable Development. You can access his Phd thesis here.
Career Experience and Qualifications
Alastair graduated from the University of York in 2004 with a First Class Honours degree in History and Politics. After a six month period working in the north of England in a mixture of market research and financial management, Alastair travelled to Latin America to apply his experience in the context to micro-business development projects. Among the projects with which he had contact, Alastair spent time with an indigenous jam making project in Quetzatenango in the highlands of Guatemala, and an agro-tourism project in the Sacred Valley, Peru. Specifically, he was involved in consulting local groups on market research and marketing strategies (as well as designing and building the occasional bit of physical infrastructure).
Returning to the UK in the autumn of 2005, Alastair studied at Queen Elizabeth House, Centre for Development Studies at the University of Oxford, under the ESRC 2+2 studentship program. This course provided an interdisciplinary perspective (Alastair took foundation courses in Anthropology and Economics to compliment his undergraduate training in History and Politics) on a broad range of issues that face the developing world. As part of the course Alastair also completed ESRC accredited methods training.
It was this broad approach that Alastair applied to his dissertation that covered the subject of Fair Trade and its relationship to process of sustainable development. Specifically, the work addressed the applicability of Fairtrade certification to the value chain of garment production. In 2007 Alastair graduated with an MPhil in Development Studies.
After a brief break as a foreign language teacher, Alastair moved to the ESRC Centre for Business Relationship, Accountable, Sustainability and Society, to complete his PhD in association with the School of City and Regional Planning at Cardiff University.
Peer Reviewed Publications
Smith, Alastair M. (2009), "Fair Trade Diversification and Structural Change: Towards a broader framework of analysis", Oxford Journal of Development Studies. Vol. 37 No. 4.
Smith, Alastair M. (2009), "Evaluating the Criticisms of Fair Trade: How strong is the argument that consumers and businesses should abandon Fair Trade as a means to socialise their economic decisions?", Economic Affairs. Vol. 19/4.
Consultancy Projects
Fairtrade Foundation. EGALITE, FRATERNITE, SUSTAINABILITE: why the climate revolution must be a fair revolution
Other Outputs
Smith, Alastair M., Creative Public Procurement of Green and Fair, Local and Global. Comment and Analysis Paper. BRASS.
Smith, Alastair M., Fair Trade in the ‘Periphery’: The development of Comercio Justo México and potential lessons for FLO Fairtrade. Comment and Analysis Paper. BRASS.
Smith, Alastair M. (2008), ‘A Response to the Adam Smith Report and A New Way to Think About Measuring the Content of the Fair Trade Cup’. Comment and Analysis Paper. BRASS..
Conference Papers
Smith, Alastair M. (2009), 'FLO Fair Trade Diversification And Structural Change: Building an alternative theoretical argument'. International Workshop: Fair Trade – A Moral Economy? Does Fair Trade Change the Rules of the Economic Game?, CRASSH Centre, Cambridge University, 22 May 2009.
Smith, Alastair M. (2008), ‘Fair Trade: A governance framework to promote sustainable development?’ Fair Trade Conference, University of Swansea, Wales.
Smith, Alastair M. (2008), ‘Fair Trade and Sustainable Development’, Development Studies Association, Welsh Network of Development Researchers Conference: Perspectives on Development V, Gregynog Hall, Powys, Wales.
Teaching
Alastair has delivered lectures in the following modules:
Local Food and Sustainable Development (MSc.).
Local Food Systems Versus Fair Trade: competing Narratives of Sustainable Development (Click to view presentation).
Peer-Review
Alastair has acted as a referee for the following journals:
International Journal of Consumer Studies (2008-)
Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning (2009-)
Projects
April 2009 - Developed and coordinated 'Uniting Research, Policy and Practice in Fair
Trade: A Knowledge Exchange Workshop'. St Michael's College. Cardiff.
2009 - Developed and coordinates the Fairness UK network.
Nov-Dec 2008 - Contributor towards TWIN Trading's application for a UK Department for
International Development, Development Awareness Fund. PL 09-10-0115 TWIN.
