Biotechnology
Contentious politics, contentious knowledges: mobilising against GM crops in India, South Africa and Brazil
Mobilising against GM crops: any role for knowledge and politics?
Authors:
I. Scoones
Publisher:
Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK, 2005
This paper looks at how knowledge is deployed and science constructed in different spaces of engagement activists use in campaigning against GM crops in India, South Africa and Brazil. It highlights strategies and tactics used by anti-GM activist networks across seven ‘spaces’ for citizen engagement. The case studies highlight the constraints and limitations of activist mobilisation, and how alternative knowledge framings and perspectives on science, technology and policy are often silenced. A variety of typologies of ‘spaces’ for participation and public engagement in processes of deliberation and policy-making are identified and discussed in the report. Each differentiates between the so-called ‘formal’, ‘invited’ spaces, created usually by state actors as sites for involving citizens in discussions, and ‘informal’ spaces created by citizens themselves, either through popular action, informal lobbying and networking, demonstrations of different sorts, or through the use of the media, for example.
The report analyses several spaces which have been used as platforms for deliberation and engagement as follows:
- invited spaces for discussion including workshops, conferences and debates
- informal lobbying and networking
- electoral and parliamentary processes, including the role of political parties and parliamentary committee processes
- legal processes and the courts, including constitutional challenges, deploying a broad rights focus, and public interest litigation around statutory requirements
- activist and action research, including field demonstrations and visits around alternatives
- various media, including Internet cyber-media, newspapers, television etc
- protest and direct action.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the ways forward, focusing on the need to bring consideration of wider politics and values into deliberations about future science and technology options, with a move beyond standard mechanisms and processes for deliberation and negotiation about science and technology policy. With science and technological developments moving at a lightning pace, developing countries will continue to be eager to stay in the game. Brazil, India and South Africa are part of the potential new global economic elite and will be quick to jump on new opportunities which promise competitive exports and economic growth. The opposition to GM crops has seen the testing and elaboration of many new styles of activism in the developing world, extending significantly the confidence and competence of citizen activists in places like Brazil, India and South Africa. However, as the cases have shown, the contentious politics and knowledges around GM crops are not being effectively negotiated.
