English

Qu’est-ce que le commerce équitable aujourd’hui ? Qui en sont les principaux acteurs ? Quel est son avenir ? Autant de questions auxquelles ce livre se propose de répondre à travers sept expériences sur le terrain dans différentes régions du monde. Au gré de ce voyage, le lecteur partira notamment au Chiapas au cœur d’une petite organisation de producteurs de café, en Bolivie au sein d’une exploitation de quinoa, en Inde pour explorer des formes moins traditionnelles de commerce équitable…

Cet ouvrage invite à découvrir les multiples visages d’un mouvement en pleine expansion qui cherche à retrouver l’humain derrière le consommateur, la communauté derrière le producteur et à redéfinir le lien social et politique entre ceux qu’on a trop longtemps réduits à des agents économiques désincarnés. En marge des critiques stériles qui l’assaillent ces dernières années, mais sans pour autant glisser dans un discours idéalisé, les auteurs offrent de réfléchir aux enjeux que le commerce équitable soulève en regard des appels à un commerce international plus juste et des possibilités d’un marché alternatif fondé sur d’autres valeurs.

Corinne GENDRON est professeure titulaire au département Stratégie, responsabilité sociale et environnementale à l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) et titulaire de la Chaire de responsabilité sociale et de développement durable. Elle a écrit plusieurs ouvrages et articles sur le commerce équitable ainsi que sur le développement durable et la responsabilité sociale. Elle intervient régulièrement en qualité d’experte auprès d’organismes privés et publics au Québec et à l’international.

Socio-économiste spécialisé en économie solidaire et en commerce équitable, Arturo PALMA TORRES est actuellement expert associé au CRIDA (France) et consultant au ministère du Développement agraire brésilien. Il est membre du mouvement pour l’économie solidaire en France et du réseau international ALOE (Alliance pour une économie pluriel, responsable et solidaire).

Titulaire d’une maîtrise en sciences de l’environnement, Véronique BISAILLPON est coordonnatrice de la Chaire de responsabilité sociale et de développement durable de l’École des sciences de la gestion de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM).

Date de publication : 2009, 274 pages, 14 X 21,5 cm, ISBN : 978-2-84377-148-4

Ousmane Sy retrace ici son parcours, celui d’un passeur hors normes, passeur entre l’action et la réflexion, entre l’Afrique et le monde, entre le passé et l’avenir. Dans cet ouvrage à la plume vive, sans appel, nourrie d’expériences personnelles, Ousmane Sy construit de véritables alternatives : une décentralisation authentique, une réforme radicale de l’État, une intégration régionale construite par les peuples, le refondation de l’aide internationale. C’est un véritable projet pour le Mali et pour l’Afrique qu’il nous propose.

Préface de Pierre CALAME

Date de publication : 2009, 224 pages, 14 X 21,5 cm

On Monday 12 October 2009, the Alliance brought together the five language network coordinators and six members of the Board. This meeting, prepared in advance by the permanent staff, was an opportunity to address several core issues for our movement. A French version of the minutes in full – including the verbatim of this long and exciting day of work – was sent to the participants. They wished however to have a communiqué, summing up the main points discussed and decisions taken together, drawn up in three languages for circulation among all members of the Alliance.

Un homme - pourtant féroce adversaire de l’animisme - confie à un ancien camarade du parti : « J’ai été ensorcelé par mon oncle paternel ». Un autre, Likibi, est jugé pour avoir empêché la pluie de tomber sur son village : accusé d’être féticheur, il est exécuté. Un gardien d’usine fait l’éloge de la Révolution rouge sans en comprendre un traître mot : son zèle lui sera fatal...
Avec une ironie mordante et un ton décalé, ce recueil de huit nouvelles évoque la déroute des jeunes États africains et les désillusions qui ont suivi les indépendances. Autant de portraits d’hommes et de femmes qu’Emmanuel Dongala parvient à saisir avec justesse et humanité. Le style est faussement naïf, les situations parfois loufoques... et si l’auteur s’autorise des échappées poétiques - liées à sa passion du jazz - le constat reste souvent pessimiste derrière l’humour doux-amer de l’écriture.

Né en 1941, Emmanuel Dongala a grandi au Congo-Brazzaville et vit aujourd’hui aux États-Unis. Il est l’auteur de plusieurs romans, dont Les petits garçons naissent aussi des étoiles et Johnny Chien Méchant, parus au Serpent à plumes.

Date de publication de la version panafricaine : 2009, 204 pages, 11,5 X 19 cm

Un cadavre dans un bunker : celui du chef de l’État, N’Zo Nikiema. Un mystère : celui du meurtre de la petite Kaveena, fille unique de la maîtresse du président défunt. Le colonel Asante Kroma, chef de la police, va devoir démêler les sombres arcanes d’un système dont il a aussi été l’un des rouages.
Kaveena, long monologue lucide et désespéré, dit de manière implacable l’Afrique meurtrie, aux mains de politiciens locaux et étrangers, brutaux, avides, sans merci. Un roman courageux et sans concession.

Auteur sénégalais né en 1946, Boubacar Boris Diop s’est imposé comme un écrivain majeur de l’Afrique contemporaine. Il a écrit plusieurs romans, dont Murambi, Le livre des ossements (Stock, 1997) et Doomi Golo, écrit en wolof (Papyrus, 2003) et paru en français aux éditions Philippe Rey en 2009.

Date de publication de la version panafricaine : 2009, 382 pages, 11,5 X 19 cm

In view of the worrying situation in Iran and the attacks on freedom of expression, the publishers of the Alliance wish to express their solidarity with their Iranian colleagues. They demand the right to publish freely and call for increased cultural and editorial exchanges with Iran.

The Alliance language network coordinators will meet in Paris on Monday 12th and Tuesday 13d of October 2009. This meeting comes further to a request formulated by the publishers at the International Assembly of Independent Publishing (July 2007), who wished that the coordinators could meet the members of the Alliance’s Board.

Language network coordinators :

• Nouri Abid, Tunisia (Med Ali), coordinator of the Arabic-language network ;
• Marc Favreau, United States (The New Press), coordinator of the English-language network ;
• Guido Indij, Argentina (la marca editora), coordinator of the Spanish-language network ;
• Serge D. Kouam, Cameroon (Presses universitaires d’Afrique), coordinator of the French-language network ;
• Cristina Warth, Brazil (Pallas), coordinator of the Portuguese-language network.

Comment, dans le contexte de la mondialisation, l’humanité peut-elle concilier les nécessités économiques avec le fait incontournable que les ressources naturelles sont limitées ? C’est la question que pose Pierre Calame dans cet ouvrage.

Le présent ouvrage a reçu le label « Le livre équitable », qui symbolise cette solidarité entre éditeurs – solidarité qui mobilise aussi indirectement les lecteurs : c’est parce qu’il est vendu 25 € en France que le présent livre peut être acheté moitié moins cher en République de Guinée.

Date de publication : 2009,
608 pages,
14 X 21,6 cm

As the official campaign for the next European elections is being launched, the Alliance has decided to get involved in a positive fashion by formulating three proposals that would be very simple to implement.

These proposals have furthermore been published on the website http://challengeforeurope.blogactiv.eu, with dozens of others, on the initiative of the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation in the framework of its “What kind of Europe do we want ?” program. Let us hope this impressive corpus of proposals will be a profitable inspiration to the EU’s future elected representatives !

In 2017, publishers who are members of the Alliance along with academics and experts united to collectively produce some research on Public Book Policies in Latin America and in Sub-Saharan Africa. This has since been converted into a unique digital, graphic and interactive tool for informing and centralising data on the public support systems for books and reading in 22 countries.

In 2024, the International Alliance of Independent Publishers, thanks to the support of Open Society Foundation, extends this project to the Arab world for a better understanding of public authorities’ commitment to books and reading in the different countries of the Arab world. To this end, data is collected in 10 countries based on a common questionnaire. The data will then be presented on the dedicated website for each country. A cross-sectional analysis will be carried out on the basis of these data ; the Alliance is looking for an author to draft this cross-sectional analysis.

Deadline to apply (equipe@alliance-editeurs.org) : 13 May 2024

This unique and important work ! The mapping and the analysis will be presented publicly in December 2024 or January 2025 to professionals and representatives of public authorities in the countries.

Read more here (in Arabic) / see on the right the English version for download

“It is important to understand the key role that the public procurement of books plays–similar to that of roads in a country’s development–and the related impacts of these actions on the ecosystem of books, culture, and education.

In purchasing books and socializing the processes of reading, the state’s actions may have numerous impacts. The selection of books is not only a question of quality and price, nor is it a simple technical process or an isolated action.”

This document is based on the Brevísimo manual de buenas prácticas para las compras públicas de libros (print and digital) that was included in the work of the Comisión de Compras Públicas de la Política Nacional de la Lectura y el Libro 2015-2020 (Chile), prepared by Paulo Slachevsky, coordinator of the commission. We are grateful to Germán Gacio Baquiola for his critical feedback and contributions.

Read the Manual

“Una buena política de adquisición de libros por parte del Estado tiene múltiples y significativos impactos en el desarrollo cultural, social, económico y político de un país […] Por todo ello es tan importante mejorar, incrementar, trasparentar, desconcentrar y fortalecer la presencia de autoras/es y editoriales locales en los procesos de compras públicas de libros. También analizar, revisar y diversificar constantemente las áreas en que se centran los gastos, como los libros de textos que concentran generalmente gran parte del gasto público en libros.”

Este documento reproduce, con algunas modificaciones, el Brevísimo Manual de buenas prácticas para las compras públicas de libros (en papel y en formato digital) que fue incorporado al trabajo de la Comisión de Compras Públicas - Política Nacional de la Lectura y el Libro 2015-2020 (Chile), realizado por Paulo Slachevsky (LOM Ediciones, Chile) como coordinador de la Comisión. Este manual ha sido revisado por Germán Gacio Baquiola (Editores independientes de Ecuador).

Leer el manual

Read the call for contributions for the next issue of Bibliodiversité review, to be published in October 2024.

Please contact us if you would like to submit a contribution to the Bibliodiversité review under the topic « The precariousness of independent publishing » : equipe@alliance-editeurs.org

“Co-publishing is a reminder of the extent to which solidarity is the main factor in the successful realisation of any project. It is a symbol of the strength that can be found when several publishers unite together. The book becomes much cheaper, accessible to the maximum number of readers and reaches several countries at the same time.” Lilian Thuram

For more than twenty years, independent publishing houses that are members of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers have collaborated, sharing resources and know-how and developing solidarity co-publishing.

To record and preserve this expertise, the Alliance is going back to the beginnings of solidarity co-publishing and presenting the history of a pioneering collection, “Terres solidaires”, as well as the story of the publication of one of its titles.

With this document, the Alliance also wishes to reaffirm the need for solidarity co-publishing in order to :
• disseminate texts (thereby helping expand the literary ecosystem) ;
• strengthen local book industries ;
• make books more accessible to readers (adapted price).

Thank you very much to Armand Jamme for writing this document and to Mariette Robbes for its graphic design and illustration.

Order this issue in digital format here (in French).

Sale price (digital format - PDF) : 5 euros
ISBN : 978-2-490855-51-3

Published : 23 March 2023

The Bibliodiversité review is co-published by Double ponctuation and the International Alliance of Independent Publishers.

See all previous issues of the review here (“Inclusion and Diversity in the Book Industry”, “The Alternatives. Ecology, social economy : the future of the book ?”, “Minority Languages”, “Public Book Policies”, “Self-Publishing”, “Publishing and Commitment”, “Translation and Globalization”...).

Presentation
Many independent publishers and bookshops are faced with the question of the transmission of their businesses, and sometimes struggle to find someone to take them on. This not only impacts the individuals concerned. Given the extent to which, as a generation leaves the world of work, the phenomenon is gaining momentum in Europe as well as Latin America and Africa, the future of a certain idea of the book is also at stake.

But is transmission necessary ? And if yes, to who, when and how ? Are there differences between the transmission of a publishing house or bookshop and that of other businesses ? In a sector undergoing great change, the giving up of a business in the book industry poses a broader question about the capacity for renewal of cultural organisations – of their people, practices and content – but also about the integration of legislative, societal and technological changes.

Here, a collection of texts tackles from different points of view this essential yet under-studied subject. More than a practical guide – something it appears it would be difficult to write, given the variety of situations encountered – in this issue we seek above all to share academic analyses and accounts of experiences to help us reflect on the notion of renewal and think about these transmissions.

Read an excerpt from this issue, published by ActuaLitté : the testimony of Colleen Higgs, Modjaji Books in South Africa

Contents (in French)

Solidarity co-publishing and translations contribute to the circulation of content and exchange of ideas. Solidarity co-publishing makes it possible for the activities and costs associated with publishing and printing to be shared, which means that books can be made available to wider audiences at a fair price. Solidarity co-publishing partnerships bring structure to the book market in the medium term : distributing texts in often inaccessible areas, reinforcing professional capabilities, developing catalogues, and enabling fair professional and commercial exchanges between the North and South and the development of innovative exchanges and partnerships between countries in the South. Here, independent publishers share their experiences and encourage public authorities to support and assist solidarity publishing partnerships.

Why have a Guide ?
This Guide is based on ideas, discussions, round tables and workshops prior to and during the International Conference of Independent Publishers in Pamplona-Iruñea (23-26 November 2021).

The objectives of this guide are to :
• suggest lines of approach and actions for publishers who are members of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers, and to book professionals more broadly ;
• help implement and put into practice the principles and values defended by the Alliance’s members ;
• illustrate these principles using examples (experience, projects, ideas, etc. from professionals) which may serve as sources of inspiration.

How ?
The “entries” in this Guide are thematic. Given that the intention of the Guide is to present in a practical way the principles of the Pamplona-Iruñea Declaration, the main entries are currently as follows :
• decolonial publishing
• ecological publishing
• feminist and LGBTQI+ publishing
• free publishing
• social publishing
• solidarity-based publishing

This Guide will evolve ; its form is not fixed. Indeed, several of the Guide’s entries require input that will come from the work of the thematic working groups which will be tasked with making suggestions and enhancing these entries. It will then be possible to update and adapt the Guide over time in line with the evolution of practices and ideas inside the Alliance (in particular through post-conference thematic working groups).

Prerequisite
The Alliance is a unique intercultural network, whose specificity and strength lie in respect for diversity.
Kindness, curiosity, listening and respect for points of view, as well as equal opportunities for speech, must be the basis of every exchange within the Alliance. There can be no place for hate speech or non-inclusive discourse, which would be against the fundamental principles of the Alliance.
This prerequisite is the basis on which the Alliance’s members organise themselves and work together – on the creation of this Guide, among other things.

Warning
The Guide to Good Practice is intended as food for thought and discussion. It cannot commit the publishers who are members of the Alliance to all the proposals and recommendations it contains. Indeed, the International Alliance of Independent Publishers is aware of the geographical diversity of its members and, consequently, of their cultural diversity. It is also fully aware of the impossibility of implementing certain measures (e.g. on book ecology, etc.) in some countries for many reasons related to the political, social, economic, cultural environment…

Read the Guide

The ecology of the book is concerned with ideas and professional practices towards a sustainable, decolonial and geopolitical ecology of the book, involving all the actors of the world of books and taking into account their interdependence.

These ideas and practices seek to articulate several dimensions and include all the actors involved in the production of books, from creation, layout and publication to reading, including printing, distribution and sale in bookshops.

In addition to these material dimensions linked to the production of books (inputs, choice of paper, transport from the printing press), there are symbolic dimensions, which reflect on the use of books and bibliodiversity. Finally, book ecology also takes into consideration the external factors impacting on the book industry and the book market, in particular the social and environmental dynamics informing a sustainable ecological perspective.

Book ecology is therefore a concept that refers to a complex, collective and interprofessional understanding of all the practices linked to the production of books. It seeks to foster dialogue between professionals to bring about structural and thoughtful changes for greater eco-responsibility and bibliodiversity.