Trade Fetishism: Magical and Materialist Thinking in Global Political Economy

Trade Fetishism argues that ’trade’ not only meets material goals, but simultaneously works as a fantasy that seeks to satisfy and sooth our unconscious desires and anxieties.

Gavin Fridell is University Research Professor of Political Science and Global Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada and the co-author of Rethinking Development Politics and Global Libidinal Economy. He is a member of the Trade and Investment Research Project (TIRP) of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Patrick Clark is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science and Global Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University and a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York University in Toronto. He has previously been a Visiting Researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO- Ecuador) in Quito, Ecuador and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) in Lima, Peru.