Narrating technonatures: discourses of biotechnology in a neoliberal era

Abstract

This article considers the role played by discourses of nature in structuring the cultural politics of anti-GMO activism. It argues that such discourses have been successful rhetorical tools for activists because they mobilize widely resonant nature-culture dualisms that separate the natural and human worlds. However, these discourses hold dubious political implications. In valorizing the natural as a source of essential truth, natural purity discourses fail to challenge how naturalizations have been used to legitimize sexist, racist and colonial systems of injustice and oppression. Rather, they revitalize the discursive purchase of appeals to nature as a justification for the status quo, indirectly reinforcing existing power relations. Moreover, these discourses fail to challenge the critical though contingent reality of GMOs' location within the wider framework of neoliberal social relations. Fortunately, appeals to natural purity have not been the only effective strategy for opposing GMOs. Activist campaigns that directly target the political economic implications of GMOs within the context of neoliberalism have also had successes without resorting to appeals to the purity of nature. The successes of these campaigns suggest that while nature-culture dualisms remain politically effective normative groundings, concerns over equity, farmers' rights, and democracy retain potential as ideological terrains in the struggle for social justice.

When Activism, Tactical Media, Visual And Participatory Media Involve High Stakes: Investigating The Visual And Participatory Aspects Of Science Communication

“…To illustrate how visual media builds on the affective energies of an already established cultural framework based on moralising binaries such as nature-culture, and how it channels public debates towards such binaries, I would like to provide an overview of the literature concerning GMOs images. Carroll (2018) claims that the resistance against GMOs is multilayered, but most anti-GMO activism has little in common besides seeking some mystical state of "natural purity", in fact, both proprietors and antagonists usually employ tropes based on nature-culture essentialisms.…”

“…Besides the issue of the GMOs themselves (who produces or sells them, what effect they have on the human body or the environment) they become symbols circulated within an already polarised and politicised media environment, as part of much more complex signifying chains. Such essentialisations are effective tools of mobilisation, because they are based on tropes firmly embedded in the public consciousness, but some argue that they are also counterproductive in the longer term, because they divert attention from structural causes of social injustice, and fail to address the social embeddedness of biotechnology and its political and economic context (Carroll 2018). For example, novel GMO crops divert attention from the structural causes of famine.…”

“…For example, novel GMO crops divert attention from the structural causes of famine. (Carroll 2018. Clancy and Clancy (2016) claim that the cultural resistance to GMOs shows the ability of images to short-circuit appeals to logic.…”

“…Therefore, these essentialisations are effective tools of mobilisation, because they are based on tropes firmly embedded in the public consciousness, but they might also be counterproductive in the longer term, because they divert attention from the structural causes of social injustice, and fail to address the social embeddedness of biotechnology and its political and economic context (Carroll, 2018).…”