Type

Text

Type

Dissertation

Advisor

Moran, Timothy | Schwartz, Michael | Rosenthal, Naomi | Eyal, Gil | Vara, Ana.

Date

2015-05-01

Keywords

Counter-hegemonic science, Network of expertise, Pesticides and genetically modified crops, Risk governance, Social movements, Socio-environmental conflict | Sociology

Department

Department of Sociology.

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/76813

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

In a time of growing technological hazards, there is widespread concern about the demise of citizen control over risk governance. As technological regulatory frameworks are based on experts' decisions, democratic debate is increasingly restricted or eliminated from the process. In this context, new forms of collective action in the arena of regulatory science (Jasanoff, 1990) are emerging, as well as novel relationships between social movements and scientific expertise. This dissertation seeks to understand these relationships by exploring the conflict over the governance of agrarian biotechnology in Argentina. I focus on campaigns for changing agricultural practices and restricting the use of pesticides in the province of Córdoba between 2001 and 2013. Argentina is the third largest producer of genetically modified (GM) soy. Since the 1996 domestic adoption of GM soy that is resistant to glyphosate based herbicides, the proportion of hectares under cultivation and the use of glyphosate have increased exponentially. While agrarian bio-technology has improved productivity levels; the concomitant human health and environmental costs associated with glyphosate-based herbicides use have generated intense protest in the affected agricultural communities. Most of these locally based protests were ignored by the government and dissipated without impacting glyphosate based herbicides usage. Despite the fact that experiments conducted by independent international scientists have revealed associations between glyphosate exposure and a range of health ailments (including cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, infertility, and delayed pregnancies), Argentina’s national regulatory agency classified glyphosate as a product of “low toxicity†and no national law restricting glyphosate based herbicides commercialization and use was ever passed in the country. However, some communities successfully challenged official regulatory science by creating enduring protest organizations allied with scientists and physicians, pressing for the enactment of local regulations that restricted the use of glyphosate based herbicides and mandated change in GM soy cultivation practices. This dissertation documents and analyzes the process through which grassroots movements promoted the emergence of a national network of expertise (Eyal 2010a, 2001b); and how the different but intertwined strategies pursued by the social movements and the emerging network of expertise resulted in positive changes within the science-based regulatory framework in Argentina. | 140 pages

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