Forthcoming in Environmental Values ©The White Horse Press http://www.whpress.co.uk Elena R. Álvarez-‐Buylla and Alma Piñeyro Nelson (eds.) El maíz en peligro ante los transgénicos: Un análisis integral sobre el caso de México UNAM, México: Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinares en Ciencias y Humanidades: Unión de Científicos Comprometidos con la Sociedad, 2013 ISBN 978-‐607-‐02-‐4705-‐7, $200 (MXN) -‐ $15,22 (USD). 568p. In a dense interdisciplinary work Elena R. Álavez-‐Buylla and Alma Piñeyro Nelson gather 54 researchers and scholars from Mexico – although not exclusively – to address the current complex problematic of transgenic corn (maíz) in Mexico. From molecular genetics to peasant and indigenous communities’ perceptions of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), from risk assessment studies to political economy, from biosecurity to worldview, the 54 authors take us through a disciplinary travel into the political-‐scientific controversy on GMOs in Mexico, opening the space for a mirror play with the rest of the world. In 17 chapters, the authors draw the complex landscape of the current world debate about GMOs. At first sight, the book might appear as just one more piece of scientific literature around a controversial issue to be added to all the others already produced. However, its difference lies in the political visions of the authors themselves, which carry an important message: this is not about a scientific controversy, but about a conflict over power that has contextual characteristics that should be analysed in their situational complexity. Opening the book with the ‘Origin and diversity of corn’ (chapter 1)1 the authors give us the vanishing point of the entire book. Mexico is not just one of the main world producers of corn with a production of 24 million tons over 8 million ha last year (p. 445), but a complex system of production that involves science, politics, economics, historical, ethics and mythic dimensions. GMOs came to scramble the pieces that combine these dimensions, opening up space for a new mode of control. The next four chapters (chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5)2 are dedicated to bioengineering itself. Starting with a very precise and readable description of how a GMO is created, the authors deal with the scientific uncertainties that are constitutive of science, but with an acute sense of the social responsibility of/in scientific practice. In a language accessible to someone with no background in molecular genetics, the authors show us that lay persons to the field can understand the concepts behind the science and the techniques of GMOs fabrication, contrary to the dominant perspective that only experts are able to understand the subject. But most importantly, the authors make clear that science is not impartial; on the contrary, it is ideologically designed. Without denying the potentialities of molecular genetics, the authors argue in chapter 4 that the dominant paradigm of looking at the genome as a puzzle able to be reassembled with no consequences in the genes’ expression has been overcome within the disciplinary field, despite continuing to dominate the epistemic design of GMOs. But if the 1 Authors: Ángel Kato, Rafael Ortega Paczka, Eckart Boege, Ana Wegier, José Antonio Serratos Hernández, Valeria Alavez, Lev Jardón-‐Barbolla, Leticia Moyers y Diego Ortega Del Vecchyo 2 Authors: Chap. 2: Valeria Alavez, Elena R. Álvarez-‐Buylla, Alma Piñeyro Nelson, Ana Wegier, José Antonio Serratos Hernández y Jorge Nieto-‐Sotelo; Chap.3: Valeria Alavez, Alma Piñeyro Nelson y Ana Wegier; Chap.4: Elena R. Álvarez-‐Buylla, Alma Piñeyro Nelson, Antonio Turrent, Jorge Nieto-‐Sotelo, Ana Wegier, Valeria Alavez, Leonora Milán, Terje Traavik y David Quist; Chap.5: Rubén López-‐Revilla y Claudio Martínez Debat
Forthcoming in Environmental Values ©The White Horse Press http://www.whpress.co.uk conceptualisation of the genome as a system was not enough to explain the scientific controversies and the risks associated with GMOs, chapter 5 demonstrates that the technology behind GMOs is also articulated with developments in the areas of chemistry and pharmacology, relating it to chemical hazards. Apart from the effects of chemicals, machinery and the technical methods behind genetically modified crops, there is also a strong pressure to promote the discrediting of researchers who relate to GMOs as counter-‐experts, such as Gilles-‐ Éric Séralini, Andres Carrasco and Ignacio Chapela (himself a contributor to the book, with a special chapter). This topic is dealt with as well in chapter 5. At the end to the chapter, another vanishing point is drawn into the picture: the myth of GMOs as a key to solving the problem of famine in the world. In chapter 6,3 the reader is introduced to the political economic dimension of the conflict and, specifically, to the large agribusiness model in Mexico and its effects on the Mexican bioeconomy. Drawing on language which avoids the separation of economy from biology, the authors of this chapter open the space for discussions, in chapter 7,4 over how the scarcity of production in 2008/2009 was in fact constructed. Although that is not the main thread of the chapter, which seeks to expose the historical meaning of corn in Mexico and the cultural relation with food, the author starts to draw the line on how food scarcity is a concept built to favour big agribusiness in the world, denying peoples’ emotional, intellectual and aesthetic relation with crops and food. In chapter 8,5 the issues of biosecurity and conservation are addressed, offering an important assessment of the attack on the precautionary principle and the associated shift to the narrative of self-‐responsible use, but also opening up, in the book, the discussion over legislative and judiciary powers, and their complacency towards large biotech corporations. This chapter provides a connection to chapter 13,6 which displays the lack of public transparency of national powers, with chapter 14,7 dealing with the regulation of seeds, and with chapter 15,8 which accounts for how the Mexican state has simulated social concerns only to better protect large companies – violating all international protocols of diversity protection and human rights. We are thus introduced into the story of how the legislative and judicial powers have been co-‐opted into a process of control promoted by multinational corporations, and how these have excluded from their arguments an integrated interdisciplinary analysis and assessment of the impacts of their products. Chapter 9,9 in my view, is one of the most important and courageous contributions to the book. If all the previous chapters dealt with conflicts within particular areas by bringing in resources from other disciplines, while drawing on an accessible vocabulary, this chapter holds
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Authors: Alejandro Polanco Jaime y Arturo Puente González Author: Héctor Bourges R. 5 Authors: José Antonio Serratos Hernández y Alejandra Celeste Dolores Fuentes 4
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Authors: Alma Piñeyro Nelson, Elena R. Álvarez-‐Buylla, Alejandra Celeste Dolores Fuentes y José Antonio Serratos Hernández 7 Authors: Alejandro Espinosa Calderón, Antonio Turrent Fernández, Margarita Tadeo Robledo, Adelita San Vicente Tello, Noel Gómez Montiel, Mauro Sierra Macías, Artemio Palafox Caballero, Roberto Valdivia Bernal, Flavio A. Rodríguez Montalvo, Benjamín Zamudio González y Pablo Andrés Meza 8 Authors: Lizy Peralta y Catherine Marielle 9 Author: Brian Wynne
Forthcoming in Environmental Values ©The White Horse Press http://www.whpress.co.uk no punches back in naming, and using the names of power, to point its fingers at modern science, and how it has served the interests of capitalist accumulation and political, anti-‐ communist persecution. Demonstrating that science is not neutral, the author lays bare the responsibility of modern science and its role in the expansion and consolidation of the neoliberal paradigm. Another important feature of the chapter is its reference to alternatives which are being constructed, namely emerging, as well as current, participatory models of science-‐society relations. In a nonlinear form, chapter 15 points the finger to this elephant in the room, and chapter 9 provides it with names and bodies, opening up the space for the ethical discussion promoted in chapter 10,10 which concludes with the plain statement that the existing conflict over GMOs is inevitable, as it is based on conflicting values and interests. Rather than acknowledging the conflict, powerful actors and institutions want to sweep it under the carpet of a discretionary model of governance. Finally, chapters 11, 12, 1611 and 17 focus on the debate over alternatives. Although most of the other chapters offer contributions to the thinking and enacting of alternative uses of biotechnologies, their modes of production and their democratisation, these chapters provide more elaborate and specific alternatives, some of them already on the move. What all chapters in this book share is the vision that, in a country were agrobiodiversity of corn is so important, politically, environmentally and culturally, the introduction of transgenic organisms, with their agrotoxic partners and neoliberal way of production, threatens not only biodiversity and human health, but the health of democracy itself. The relevance of the book goes further than the specific national context it refers to, as it provides an exemplar for similar approaches to the subject in the ‘South of the North’, e.g. Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy. The message is clear: no solution to any problem comes encapsulated in a single species. I highly recommend its reading and translation into other languages. Irina Castro Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, PT
[email protected]
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Authors: León Olivé, Jorge Linares, Yolanda Massieu y Leonora Milán
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Authores: Chap.11: Catherine Marielle, Antonio Turrent Fernández, Lucio Díaz, Marta Astier, Narciso Barrera-‐ Bassols, Carlos H. Ávila Bello, Alejandra Celeste Dolores Fuentes; Chap.12: Elena Lazos Chavero y Dulce Espinosa de la Mora; Chap.16: Beatriz De la Tejera H., George Dyer, Blanca Rubio, Joaquín Morales, Marta Astier, Narciso Barrera-‐Bassols, Eckart Boege y Ana de Ita; Chap.17: Adelita San Vicente Tello y Areli Carreón
