Q. You claim in your promotional materials that you are dedicated to supporting indigenous artistic traditions around the world. How can I be sure that the money I spend on your products is not contributing to the exploitation of producers, many of whom are quite poor? Are Nativa’s items “Fair Trade”?
GM, Santa Barbara, CA

A.  In my field, anthropology, there are many folks who consider anything that is commercial to be somehow sinful, soulless, or both. Obviously, as a business owner, I don’t share this point-of-view. Nativa Handicrafts is for-profit and I make no apologies for that. Do we buy Fair Trade goods? Occasionally, if we believe that those goods are a reasonable value for the money and can turn a profit. We will not buy something for Nativa simply out of sympathy for a struggling artist—we buy it because I think it is beautiful and, equally importantly, marketable. That said, we do make an effort to buy directly from the producer whenever possible, for several reasons. First, we believe that more of the proceeds will go to the artisans themselves when we buy direct. Second, going straight to the workshop allows us to get a better understanding of how the items are actually made and to see who is making them. We can see the conditions in which the producers work and be sure that they are not being churned out in some factory and resold to us as something they are not (see the earlier question about authenticity). Finally, buying products from the people who make them establishes an important connection between us and the artist that we wouldn’t have if we bought through a middleman. I consider many of our suppliers to be friends as well as business associates, and this business wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling without those relationships.

Although some critics think of anything that is made for the market rather than just for personal use and enjoyment to be somehow tainted, consider how little in the way of indigenous art and handicrafts would be available for us to enjoy if there were no market for such things. The market has provided powerful incentives for generations of artists and craftspeople. Historically in Asia, Europe and many other parts of the world, patronage by kings and nobles spawned some of the most magnificent art and architecture the world has ever known, and without their largesse many of the masterworks we admire today would not exist. In their own humbler fashion, middle class consumers serve a similar function today, since it is frequently their demand for traditional art and handicrafts that allows local producers to continue their craft.

So, in my view, the ethical marketing of indigenous art and handicrafts is not just legitimate—it is indispensable for preserving and promoting local artistic traditions. I have worked in various capacities over the last several years to try to promote handicraft industries in countries around the world, and I have seen a lot of well meaning but ultimately ineffective programs aiming to help poor artisans. One of the biggest problems, I found, was that many of these programs viewed producers as charity cases, and their goods were marketed as “compassion buys”. (I’ve made more than one compassion buy in my day, I must admit—a particularly hideous soap dish marketed by an NGO devoted to helping Bedouin women in Egypt comes to mind). The fact is, by shielding producers from market forces, these programs often do them a disservice in the long run because the artisans never learn to produce items that consumers really want to buy based on the merit of the product rather than just compassion for the producer. My intent here is not to bash charities and NGOs—along with museums, universities and other public/non-profit institutions, they have done much to protect and publicize vanishing artistic traditions around the world. But NGOs and charitable foundations—however big-hearted and high-minded they may be –are frequently not the best organizations for teaching artisans how to market their products, and they may end up doing more harm than good by unwittingly making artists more dependent upon them through time. For many artists and crafts people, the market offers greater potential rewards than charitable donors, but in order to benefit from it artisans need to understand consumer demand and the ways of business.

I often hear NGO staff and other high-minded folk talk about “cutting out the middleman” to insure that artist and crafts people get their “fair share”. This makes sense, if indeed the producers are receiving a pittance while traders are getting rich off their toil. There are cases where this is no doubt happening, but in most situations where markets are functioning properly, the middleman can play a positive role by helping producers to access new markets and get their goods to consumers. As I’ve noted, we at Nativa try to buy direct when we can, but because we carry items from every corner of the world, there are situations in which it is simply not practical. Also, though I have stressed the benefit of artists understanding business, many creative people are simply not cut out to be traders, and vice-versa. I remember listening to a bright-eyed business student explaining to a pair of Native American potters how they could become more efficient by calculating the cost of their time and materials using a complex diagram of the whole production process. The potters nodded politely and thanked him for the information, but I could not imagine them going back to their pueblo with notepad and calculator and actually doing what he was suggesting. If they had the interest and aptitude for that kind of thing, they would be bookkeepers or store owners, not potters. In our specialized world, there is a place for artists and a place for traders; it is good if they can understand each other, but rare for one individual to do both very well.

To sum up, it is certainly true that the real value of a craft transcends dollars and cents, but it is also true that economics often plays a vital role in the survival and spread of craft and folk art. I’ll be writing more about these issues and the pros and cons of the Fair Trade movement in future blogs—stay tuned.

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