Bioeconomic fiction between narrative dynamics and a fixed imaginary: Evidence from India and Germany

Abstract

Bioeconomic ideas and visions have received increasing attention from scientists and policy makers to address socioecological challenges. However, the role of imagined futures in the design of bioeconomic innovations and transitions has hitherto been widely neglected. In this study, we therefore explore the role of imaginaries of the future to understand how they shape bioeconomic innovations and transitions. We thereby build on insights from economic sociology and compare two distinct case studies from Germany and India. Based on our results, we inductively develop an analytic model that describes the coconstitution of imaginaries, fictional expectations, narratives, and innovation dynamics. Our results show that narrative dynamics are caused by irritations in the political and discursive landscape; these irritations prompt economic actors to stabilize, adapt, or reject their own bioeconomic conceptions, while the underlying imaginary of a technological fix remains fixed. We discuss this reductionist imaginary and instead plead for an imaginary of a socioecological fix that reintertwines technologies with their underlying societal, cultural, and ecological factors. We conclude that this will support sustainability scholars and policy makers in remaining vigilant against premature mental and institutional lock-ins that could lead to a colonization of the future with severe negative implications for society's ability to mitigate and adapt to global environmental change in the future.

Bt cotton, pink bollworm, and the political economy of sociobiological obsolescence: insights from Telangana, India

“…Equipped with genes of the Bt bacterium, Bt cotton plants produce endotoxins that are lethal to some Lepidopteran pests, such as the PBW (Naik et al 2005;Subramanian and Qaim 2009;Kathage and Qaim 2012;Kaviraju et al 2018;Khan et al 2018). However, the abrupt return of the major cotton pest that Bt technology aimed to prevent has alarmed scientists and policy makers alike and set off a renewed debate regarding the longevity of the technology (Mohan 2017;Naik et al 2018;Fand et al 2019;Friedrich et al 2022;Najork et al 2021). An earlier wave of this debate occurred when the first Bt cotton generation (Bollgard I) was declared ineffective in 2009 and was soon after replaced by its successor (Bollgard II), which was authorized in India in 2006.…”

Biotechnology and the socio-biological production of vulnerability. Genetically engineered cotton in Telangana, India

“…This study is embedded in the prevailing, above-outlined controversy that surrounds GE crops in general and Bt cotton technology in India in specific Luna 2020). In order to contribute to this scientific debate, I present four peer-reviewed papers that have been published (chapters 5 ), 6 (Najork et al 2022, and 8 (Friedrich et al 2022), or have been accepted for publication (chapter 7 (Najork and Keck (forthcoming)) in four different international scientific journals. I contributed to three of these publications as sole first author (chapters 5, 6, and 7), while I contributed to the fourth paper (chapter 8) in the form of a shared first authorship.…”

“…17 Parts of this chapter have been adapted from the papers and the manuscript that constitute this thesis (cf. chapters 5-8; Friedrich et al 2022;Najork and Keck (forthcoming), as well as from the abovementioned master's thesis (Najork, K. 2019. The Impact of Bt Cotton on Peasant Livelihoods in Karimnagar District in Telangana, India).…”

“…Discussing both the empirical key findings affiliated with the realm of agri-food geographies as well as the conceptual involvement of this study, this chapter presents a synthesis of the scientific contributions compiled by this research via the articles and manuscripts portrayed in chapters 5-8 (cf. Friedrich et al 2022;Najork and Keck (forthcoming).…”

“…In this context, Bt cotton, with its integrated pest protection ability, has been heralded as a silver bullet by proponents of Bt technology in the fight against this key pest affecting cotton production for years. Equipped with genes of the Bt bacterium, Bt cotton plants produce However, the abrupt return of the major cotton pest that Bt technology aimed to prevent has alarmed scientists and policy makers alike and set off a renewed debate regarding the longevity of the technology Friedrich et al 2022;). An earlier wave of this debate occurred when the first Bt cotton generation (Bollgard I) was declared ineffective in 2009 and was soon after replaced by its successor (Bollgard II), which was authorized in India in 2006.…”