Seeds, Science, and Struggle: The Global Politics of Transgenic Crops by Abby Kinchy (review)

• Autores: Glenn Davis Stone
• Localización: Technology and Culture, ISSN-e 1097-3729, Vol. 54, Nº. 4, 2013, págs. 990-991
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Despite the attempts to boil genetically modified (GM) crops down to simple narratives, the controversies that have swirled around these new technologies in different countries are in many ways strikingly different. In the United States, where farmers plant far more GM acres than anyone, disputes and controversies have been kept to surprisingly low levels (labeling initiatives and contaminations notwithstanding), but our two neighbors have both had major dust-ups. In Seeds, Science, and Struggle, sociologist Abby Kinchy shows how very different the issues, conflicts, and outcomes have been. The result is a book that is a valuable addition to the literatures on GM crops and on science studies. These literatures already include several multicountry comparisons of resistance to GM crops; Kinchy claims distinctiveness on the basis of her focus on farmers and rural communities and on her concern for how struggles over �genes out of place� unfolded differently in Mexico and Canada (p. 19). Actually, farmers and rural communities are not a strength of the book, but her account and analysis of the different sets of struggles is valuable, substantive, and well-delivered.