Discourses of Ecologically Unequal Exchange: Processes of ‘othering’ in the European Union’s framing of trade

Sammanfattning: The field of Ecologically Unequal Exchange (EUE) demonstrates how contemporary trade is based on time-space appropriation, from which the North owe the South an ecological debt. EUE researchers argue that free trade under the capitalist world-system reinforces the extractions and hinders ‘development’ of the south. To investigate the discrepancy between EUE findings and the European Unions notion of ‘trade for development’, this thesis takes a postcolonial perspective on the issue of time-space appropriation. Employing a Critical Discourse Analysis, EU trade policies are examined to investigate if and how the EU discursively reinforce time-space appropriation through practices of ‘othering’. The analysis demonstrates that the EU position their norms as universal, although they are part of a ‘culture of growth’. Thru processes of othering and of silencing other types of knowledges, the EUs trade discourse work to neutralise their own norms. As such, the EU reinforces the Western knowledge construction and their own position of power. The analysed texts imply that thru the ‘right’ combination of trade and norms, development can be achieved. This notion portrays world inequalities as stages of development. Thus, the conclusion show that processes of othering play part in obscuring time-space appropriation in the analysed documents.