Mémoire
| Résumé : | The global value chain of coffee is today more than ever characterised by what is known as the ‘coffee paradox’. This paradox describes the phenomenon where consuming countries are experiencing a ‘boom’ in wealth creation from coffee, while the producing countries and farmers go ‘bust’. In this thesis we focus on the dire situation which women find themselves inside this paradox and we look at what the European Union (EU) as a self-described leader in gender-mainstreaming is doing to help them. Drawing on the literature of the EU as a ‘normative power, Post-development theory, and critical feminist theory we analyse the ‘EU-Coffee Action for the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’ (EU-CAFE), a coffee improvement programme that specifically aims to empower women. We find that the EU’s ‘will to do good’ is marked by a profound ambivalence, and that EU-CAFE runs the foreseeable risk of exacerbating the already precarious position of these women. Furthermore, we find that gender-mainstreaming, deployed in the supposed aim of helping these women, perversely contributes to (re)producing the status quo. |
