Genetically Modified Democracy

Genetically Modified Democracy PDF Author: Aniket Aga
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300262582
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
How the debate over genetically modified crops in India is transforming science and politics Genetically modified or transgenic crops are controversial across the world. Advocates see such crops as crucial to feeding the world’s growing population; critics oppose them for pushing farmers deeper into ecological and economic distress, and for shoring up the power of agribusinesses. India leads the world in terms of the intensity of democratic engagement with transgenic crops. Anthropologist Aniket Aga excavates the genealogy of conflicts of interest and disputes over truth that animate the ongoing debate in India around the commercial release of transgenic food crops. The debate may well transform agriculture and food irreversibly in a country already witness to widespread agrarian distress, and over 300,000 suicides by farmers in the last two decades. Aga illustrates how state, science, and agrarian capitalism interact in novel ways to transform how democracy is lived and understood, and sheds light on the dynamics of technological change in populous, unequal polities.

Genetically Modified Democracy

Genetically Modified Democracy PDF Author: Aniket Aga
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300262582
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description
How the debate over genetically modified crops in India is transforming science and politics Genetically modified or transgenic crops are controversial across the world. Advocates see such crops as crucial to feeding the world’s growing population; critics oppose them for pushing farmers deeper into ecological and economic distress, and for shoring up the power of agribusinesses. India leads the world in terms of the intensity of democratic engagement with transgenic crops. Anthropologist Aniket Aga excavates the genealogy of conflicts of interest and disputes over truth that animate the ongoing debate in India around the commercial release of transgenic food crops. The debate may well transform agriculture and food irreversibly in a country already witness to widespread agrarian distress, and over 300,000 suicides by farmers in the last two decades. Aga illustrates how state, science, and agrarian capitalism interact in novel ways to transform how democracy is lived and understood, and sheds light on the dynamics of technological change in populous, unequal polities.

Genetic Democracy

Genetic Democracy PDF Author: Veikko Launis
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402062125
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
This book provides an in-depth analysis of the ethical, social and philosophical issues related to modern genetic research and gene technology. The aim of the book is to introduce systematic research on the social and ethical impacts of the use and development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as well as the acquisition, use and storage of human genetic information (HGI). The book has been written from the viewpoint of social and political philosophy.

GM Food on Trial

GM Food on Trial PDF Author: Les Levidow
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135237816
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
This book examines European institutions being ‘put on trial’ for how their regulatory procedures evaluate and regulate genetically-modified products. Levidow highlights how public controversy created a legitimacy crisis, leading to national policy changes and demands, in turn stimulating changes in EU agbiotech regulations as a strategy to regain legitimacy.

Public Engagement on Genetically Modified Organisms

Public Engagement on Genetically Modified Organisms PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309374243
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
The National Research Council's Roundtable on Public Interfaces of the Life Sciences held a 2-day workshop on January 15-16, 2015, in Washington, DC to explore the public interfaces between scientists and citizens in the context of genetically engineered (GE) organisms. The workshop presentations and discussions dealt with perspectives on scientific engagement in a world where science is interpreted through a variety of lenses, including cultural values and political dispositions, and with strategies based on evidence in social science to improve public conversation about controversial topics in science. The workshop focused on public perceptions and debates about genetically engineered plants and animals, commonly known as genetically modified organisms (GMOs), because the development and application of GMOs are heavily debated among some stakeholders, including scientists. For some applications of GMOs, the societal debate is so contentious that it can be difficult for members of the public, including policy-makers, to make decisions. Thus, although the workshop focused on issues related to public interfaces with the life science that apply to many science policy debates, the discussions are particularly relevant for anyone involved with the GMO debate. Public Engagement on Genetically Modified Organisms: When Science and Citizens Connect summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

The Constitution of Discursive Democracy

The Constitution of Discursive Democracy PDF Author: Andrew David Scott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Constitutional law
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Growing Resistance

Growing Resistance PDF Author: Emily Eaton
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
ISBN: 9780887557446
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Growing Resistance is the remarkable story of how Canadian farmers led an international coalition to a major victory for the anti-GM movement by defeating the introduction of Monsanto's genetically modified wheat. Through interviews with producers, industry organizations, and biochemical companies, Emily Eaton demonstrates how the inclusion of producer interests was integral to the coalition's success in voicing concerns about environmental implications, international market opposition to GMOs, and the lack of transparency and democracy in Canadian biotech policy and regulation. Growing Resistance is a fascinating study of the need to balance local and global concerns in activist movements and of the powerful forces vying for control of food production.

Acting in an Uncertain World

Acting in an Uncertain World PDF Author: Michel Callon
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262515962
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
A call for a new form of democracy in which “hybrid forums” composed of experts and laypeople address such sociotechnical controversies as hazardous waste, genetically modified organisms, and nanotechnology. Controversies over such issues as nuclear waste, genetically modified organisms, asbestos, tobacco, gene therapy, avian flu, and cell phone towers arise almost daily as rapid scientific and technological advances create uncertainty and bring about unforeseen concerns. The authors of Acting in an Uncertain World argue that political institutions must be expanded and improved to manage these controversies, to transform them into productive conversations, and to bring about “technical democracy.” They show how “hybrid forums”—in which experts, non-experts, ordinary citizens, and politicians come together—reveal the limits of traditional delegative democracies, in which decisions are made by quasi-professional politicians and techno-scientific information is the domain of specialists in laboratories. The division between professionals and laypeople, the authors claim, is simply outmoded. The authors argue that laboratory research should be complemented by everyday experimentation pursued in the real world, and they describe various modes of cooperation between the two. They explore a range of concrete examples of hybrid forums that have dealt with sociotechnical controversies including nuclear waste disposal in France, industrial waste and birth defects in Japan, a childhood leukemia cluster in Woburn, Massachusetts, and mad cow disease in the United Kingdom. The authors discuss the implications for political decision making in general and describe a “dialogic” democracy that enriches traditional representative democracy. To invent new procedures for consultation and representation, they suggest, is to contribute to an endless process that is necessary for the ongoing democratization of democracy.

Designs on Nature

Designs on Nature PDF Author: Sheila Jasanoff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400837316
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Biology and politics have converged today across much of the industrialized world. Debates about genetically modified organisms, cloning, stem cells, animal patenting, and new reproductive technologies crowd media headlines and policy agendas. Less noticed, but no less important, are the rifts that have appeared among leading Western nations about the right way to govern innovation in genetics and biotechnology. These significant differences in law and policy, and in ethical analysis, may in a globalizing world act as obstacles to free trade, scientific inquiry, and shared understandings of human dignity. In this magisterial look at some twenty-five years of scientific and social development, Sheila Jasanoff compares the politics and policy of the life sciences in Britain, Germany, the United States, and in the European Union as a whole. She shows how public and private actors in each setting evaluated new manifestations of biotechnology and tried to reassure themselves about their safety. Three main themes emerge. First, core concepts of democratic theory, such as citizenship, deliberation, and accountability, cannot be understood satisfactorily without taking on board the politics of science and technology. Second, in all three countries, policies for the life sciences have been incorporated into "nation-building" projects that seek to reimagine what the nation stands for. Third, political culture influences democratic politics, and it works through the institutionalized ways in which citizens understand and evaluate public knowledge. These three aspects of contemporary politics, Jasanoff argues, help account not only for policy divergences but also for the perceived legitimacy of state actions.

Democratic Transgressions of Law

Democratic Transgressions of Law PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004184376
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Drawing on comparative and interdisciplinary research in the regulation of science and technology, this book offers a critical examination of participatory governance in legal procedure and an inquiry in the institutional and procedural possibilities of democratic participation in law.

Legitimation in a World at Risk

Legitimation in a World at Risk PDF Author: E.L. Desmond
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9789811355608
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
This book provides a sociological analysis of the controversy surrounding GM crops in Telangana, India. There is much debate as to whether GM technology holds the key to improving the welfare of poor farmers globally or serves primarily to increase the profits of multinational corporations while enhancing cultivator risk. Desmond’s study is located in the economically vulnerable and politically volatile district of Warangal in Telangana, a context associated with high numbers of farmer suicides. Uniquely foregrounding the perspectives of cultivators and the landless, Desmond explores how GM crops are variously legitimated and delegitimated in three Warangal villages by those whose livelihoods are at stake in the debate, but whose voices are rarely heard within it. This book will be significant for those with an interest in GM crops, power and knowledge and their relation to understandings of development, democracy and risk management worldwide.