ksb[at]yorku.ca
Abstract: Genetic engineering (GE) of crops is an apogee of corporatized and industrialized farming and the technology threatens food sovereignty. A group of organic producers from Saskatchewan, Canada, has taken Monsanto to court because its GE canola has contaminated organic fields. An ethnography of case participants points to an impasse between the dominant framing of GE—within the logic of science—, versus farmer’s evaluations of the technology—as a set of knowledge practices that is rearranging social relationships. The case is exemplary of the need for increased citizen participation in decision-making about science and technology, and its participants represent the hope of renewed democracy around wider social justice issues.
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