Seeing GMOs from a Systems Perspective: The Need for Comparative Cartographies of Agri/Cultures for Sustainability Assessment

Amaranta Herrero, Fern Wickson and Rosa Binimelis
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Amaranta Herrero: GenØk Centre for Biosafety, Forskningsparken, PB 6418, 9294 Tromsø, Norway
Fern Wickson: GenØk Centre for Biosafety, Forskningsparken, PB 6418, 9294 Tromsø, Norway
Rosa Binimelis: GenØk Centre for Biosafety, Forskningsparken, PB 6418, 9294 Tromsø, Norway

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 8, 1-24

Abstract: Over the past twenty years, agricultural biotechnologies have generated chronically unresolved political controversies. The standard tool of risk assessment has proven to be highly limited in its ability to address the panoply of concerns that exist about these hybrid techno/organisms. It has also failed to account for both the conceptual and material networks of relations agricultural biotechnologies require, create and/or perform. This paper takes as a starting point that agricultural biotechnologies cannot be usefully assessed as isolated technological entities but need to be evaluated within the context of the broader socio-ecological system that they embody and engender. The paper then explores, compares and contrasts some of the methodological tools available for advancing this systems-based perspective. The article concludes by outlining a new synthesis approach of comparative cartographies of agri/cultures generated through multi-sited ethnographic case-studies, which is proposed as a way to generate system maps and enable the comparison of genetically modified (GM) food with both conventional and alternative agri-food networks for sustainability assessment. The paper aims to make a unique theoretical and methodological contribution by advancing a systems-based approach to conceptualising and assessing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and proposing a synthesised methodology for mapping networks of relations across different agri/cultures.

Keywords: GMOs; biotechnology; agrifood systems; social cartographies; follow the thing; food networks; multi-sited ethnography; sustainability; socio-ecological systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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