Em direção à uma EPI Etnográfica: consumo ético e o trabalho escravo na produção de cacau

The present article conducts an analysis of the compatibility between the concepts of ethical consumption and the ethnographic international political economy proposed by Blaney and Inayatullah, so that it may discuss to what extent ethical consumption is capable of impacting the cocoa production chain in a way that fights the use of slave labor in the industry today. In doing so, the article defines what is understood to be an Ethnographic IPE and Ethical Consumption, and uses the career of E. D. Morel to exemplify and understand the dynamics of ethical consumption in the chocolate industry, furthermore, a brief overview of the working reality in the Gulf of Africa, the world’s largest cocoa producer, is presented. In the intention to understand if the compatibility between these concepts and the reach of their action would be indications that ethical consumption shows a way towards an Ethnographic IPE, it is concluded that the proposed hypotheses is not completely adequate, as ethical consumption is shown to be incompatible with ethnography and, as predicted, is not enough on its own to provoke change in the production chain.