Social Labeling and Fashion
Introduction
Social Labeling in the Global Fashion Industry, Newcastle, UK, 1-3 Sep 2010, Co-organized by Doug Miller, Jennifer Bair and Marsha Dickson; Deadline 15 Nov 2009
: : : Posting
Social labeling in the global fashion industry
An international multidisciplinary conference for
academics and practitioners
1st – 3rd September 2010
School of Design
Northumbria University
UK
Social labelling refers to attempts to assure consumers and potential business partners that the labour practices connected with the production of a good or the delivery of a service meet a range of internationally agreed employment standards, generally those based on ILO conventions. As consumer awareness and concern about production conditions increases , and forecasters point to an as yet untapped market potential for ethically-produced goods such as apparel, so the search continues for robust means by which socially conscious fashion consumers, and indeed other stakeholders, can be reassured about the labour practices behind the garments they buy. But this raises a series of questions. Can the market secure ethical outcomes and can a social label provide a credible guarantee of those outcomes? Who are the stakeholders in this process and how are their interests given a voice? What can we learn about past experiments with social labels? What are the alternatives? Does a union label mean that a product is sweat free? This timely international conference seeks to bring academics and practitioners together to critically examine the phenomenon of the social label and other means of communicating with consumers about labour practices from a range of historical, empirical, theoretical and politico-economic perspectives.
Keynote speakers confirmed include Robert J. S. Ross (Professor in Sociology at Clark University), Harriet Lamb (Fairtrade Foundation) and Neil Kearney (International Textile Garment Leather Workers’ Federation).
Papers are welcomed which address the following or other relevant themes:
- Critical perspectives on branding and social labelling and the limits of ‘ethical consumption.’
- Social Labels and early Anti Sweatshop initiatives: the National Consumers’ League and the White Label, Impact assessments of the Blue Eagle Initiative on working conditions.
- Trade union perspectives on social labelling; the rise of the union label.
- Social Labels and recent Anti Sweatshop initiatives: The emergence of No Sweat and Sweat Free initiatives, including Sweatfree Communities and the Designated Supplier Programme (DSP) .
- Market based initiatives – Fairtrade, RED, Rugmark, Made in Green, ‘Made by.’
- The impact of social labels on consumer behaviour.
- The development of social labelling systems in complex supply chains: licensing, monitoring and traceability in social label systems.
- National Social Labelling Initiatives: Fibre Citoyenne, Garments without Guilt, Better Factories.
- Factory certification vs. product certification; ISO 26000, SA 8000.
- Experience of legislative initiatives in this area; the Belgian Social Label Law.
Scholars and practitioners interested in participating in this event should submit an abstract of 500-700 words to Laura Holmes at the email address listed below. Abstracts should clearly identify the issue, development or problem addressed in the proposed contribution; the method of investigation; key findings and how these contribute to understanding the problem at hand in either a theoretical or empirical way or both. Papers chosen for the conference must not have been previously published or presented elsewhere.
We intend to publish selected papers in an edited volume.
Important Dates:
Abstract submission deadline: 15th November 2009
Final paper submission deadline: 30th June 2010
Please submit abstracts to Laura Holmes, School of Design
Conference Organisers
Doug Miller Inditex/ITGLWF Professor in Ethical Fashion
School of Design
University of Northumbria
NE1 8ST
UK Tel: 00 44 191 243 7360
Fax : 00 44 191 227 4655
doug.miller@northumbria.ac.uk
Jennifer Bair
Department of Sociology
University of Colorado at Boulder
UCB 327
Boulder, CO 80309
USA
Tel: (303) 735 2389
jennifer.bair@colorado.edu
Marsha Dickson
Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies
University of Delaware 211 Alison Hall West
Newark, DE 19716
USA
Tel: (302) 831 4475
Fax: (302) 831 6081
dickson@udel.edu