The War Between Amaranth and Soy: An Interspecies History of anti-Roundup® Activism in Argentina and Paraguay (original) (raw)
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The War between Amaranth and Soy Interspecies Resistance to Transgenic Soy Agriculture in Argentina
Based on multidisciplinary archives as well as fieldwork and interviews, this article focuses on the intertwined nature of movements of resistance by humans and plants struggling against genetically engineered soy monocultures in Argentina, which we provocatively conceptualize as interspecies resistance. Roundup Ready (RR) soy is genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup, which is intended to eliminate all unwanted plants except for the main crop. In response to the repeated applications of Roundup, however , weeds, of which the most aggressive have been varieties of amaranth, mutated and evolved resistance to the herbicide. We explore how, due to this " biological " resistance of so-called super weeds, human anti-RR-soy activism has picked up, and how both kinds of resistance are interconnected. In exploring human entanglements with RR-soy and super weeds (in particular, amaranth that also has edible varieties), we follow Anna Tsing in asking how different plants mediate particular social arrangements. Moved by on-the-ground realities and inspired by Donna Haraway's provocation that " knowledge is always better from below, " we contrast the discourses of agribusiness, mediated by satellite technology from above, with views from below, where other senses join sight, focusing on the struggle for survival of fumigated humans and weeds. In our story, while RR-soy has become a " bright object " of Argentinean agriculture, drawing to its orbit multiple human and nonhu-man entities in aggressive pursuit of profits, close to the ground, weeds and the poisoned people rise up as " rogue objects " subverting " the gravitational force " of soy.
Although Argentina's use of genetically modified (GM) soybean seeds has spurred a major agricultural boom, it has also had a negative impact on many communities. In Soybeans and Power, Pablo Lapegna explores the ways in which these communities have coped with GM soybean expansion. Peasants initially resisted, yet ultimately adapted to the new agricultural technologies, playing an active role in their own demobilization in order to maneuver the situation to their advantage. A rare glimpse into the life cycle of a social movement, Soybeans and Power gives voice to the communities most adversely affected by GM technology and the strategies that they have enacted in order to survive. "This is a brilliant book, one sorely needed. Lapegna's beautifully-written ethnography of the contested politics of GM crops in Argentina is critical in the best sense of the word - a vital contribution to a debate that is often rendered in black and white."-Wendy Wolford, Cornell University "Pablo Lapegna's ethnographic research in a province of Argentina will interest anyone concerned about the global struggle over the spread of genetically modified crops. He tells a fascinating story, one without defenseless victims or stoic heroes. It is also a story that will especially appeal to anyone interested in understanding how social movements work, both how they mobilize and how they demobilize, how they challenge powerful elites and how they accommodate and adapt themselves to a world they cannot fully control."-Jeff Goodwin, New York University "...a magisterial contribution to social movement theory and to the critical history of commodities pioneered by Sidney Mintz in his classic study of sugar. The dramatic spread of GM soy in South America brought widespread agrochemical contamination and also generated resistance in the countryside. Lapegna's seamless analysis integrates key dimensions of this story, from the technological innovations behind GM crops and troubling issues of corporate power to why and how peasants both mobilize to confront this new threat and at times eschew mobilization in favor of patronage politics."-Marc Edelman, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York
The Expansion of Transgenic Soybeans and the Killing of Indigenous Peasants in Argentina
In the last two years, four activists of peasant and indigenous organizations have died in the context of land conflicts in Northern Argentina. This article examines the expansion of genetically modified soybeans and the political alliances of national and provincial governments to understand these events. The focus is put on the recent killing of a peasant activist in the province of Santiago del Estero, the media coverage of this event, and the reactions of popular organizations. The case represents an example of the " dark side of the boom " of the recent expansion of agribusiness in South America.
Since the 2000s, both the production of genetically modified (GM) soybeans and the cases of agrochemical exposure have grown exponentially in Argentina. Drawing on ethnographic research, I analyze how peasant social movements understand the socio-environmental problems caused by the expansion of GM soybeans. I argue that at national, provincial, and local scales, the institutional recognition of peasant social movements and the performative actions of authorities discourage contentious collective action through subtle yet powerful mechanisms. The article contributes to social movement research and to the literature on peasant resistance by analyzing the cultural dynamics that constrain contention and shape processes of peasant collaboration, which are arguably as important as peasant resistance, although much less studied.
Environmental Injustice in Argentina: Struggles against Genetically Modified Soy
Journal of Agrarian Change, 2016
This paper explores the unequal distribution of the environmental and social costs and benefits of the genetically modified (GM) soy model in Argentina and its impact on grievance formation and the emergence of contestation. In the 1990s, Argentina transitioned into a neoliberal agro-industrial model based on producing GM soy for export. Though celebrated as a success, the expansion of GM soy monocultures has brought widespread socio-ecological disruption. Various social actors have started to mobilize against the resulting environmental injustice. I focus on the peasant–indigenous movement in the north of the country, which is struggling for land rights, and the movements against agrochemical spraying in the central Pampas region. These groups, which are relatively powerless to control resources where they live, and that experience little or no benefit from GM soy production, nevertheless bear most of its social and ecological costs. These struggles link environmental and social well-being, becoming struggles for ecological sustainability as well as social justice and equity.