Ethical global partnerships: leadership from the Global South

In response to paternalistic forms of international volunteering, voluntourism, global service-learning, and similar versions of “community tourism”, an approach to ethical global development cooperation, fair trade learning (FTL), takes an abiding commitment to reciprocity as a foundational assumption. This commitment to reciprocity grew from a partnership with a community organization in rural Jamaica, and therefore has its genesis in the Global South (Hartman, 2015; Hartman, Paris, & Blache-Cohen, 2012, 2014). However, the individuals who have been the primary presenters of and authors about FTL are from the Global North. While there are some defensible reasons for this, this pattern of Northern authorship embodies a conflict with the commitments intended by FTL standards, which include deliberate co-generation and co-production of knowledge as components of reciprocity (Hartman, 2015; Hartman, Paris, & Blache-Cohen, 2014). This chapter first considers the practical repercussions of coupling the notion of global standards with continuous commitment to co-generation and co-ownership, while highlighting the importance of embracing that struggle. It then shares perspectives on FTL standards from development and academic professionals in India and South Africa. Finally, it concludes with recommendations for deliberate coupling of standards, continuous criticality, and commitment to co-generation.