Publication Date
Spring 5-17-2020
Abstract
This dissertation is about how agricultural biotechnology was invoked in Argentina to rebuild the state and the economy after the 2001 economic crisis, which I approach by making visible the social lives of those experiencing the unintended consequences of a large-scale agrarian transformation. My starting point is to try to understand the paradoxical way that a leftist political project, Kirchnerismo, relied on and promoted an export driven soy boom as a way to rebuild the state after the 2001 economic crisis. While I do give significant attention to the high level state and industry practices, my goal is to examine how the unintended consequences of this agricultural transformation have become sites for local communities to advocate novel regulation. Their acts of discovery, pursuit of scientific knowledge, and political organizing constitute alternative and sometimes contrasting forms of repairing the Argentine state from the land up. To accomplish this, I offer three case studies, each of which examines a previously unimagined side effect of Argentina’s GM soy boom, including contestations over economic redistribution in the domain of federal export tax policy, the formation of political subjectivity in response to indiscriminate agrochemical spraying through (re)presenting the act as criminal, and coalition building across ideological lines in the image of scientific neutrality. While these are local bids to repair a state capable of delivering on its promises, each community’s visions of the future is wholly intertwined with settler imaginaries of what an Argentine democracy ought to be.
Keywords
Argentina, GMOs, Environmental Anthropology, Anthropology of Policy, Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies, Repair
Document Type
Dissertation
Language
English
Degree Name
Ethnology
Level of Degree
Doctoral
Department Name
Anthropology
First Committee Member (Chair)
Dr. Ronda Brulotte
Second Committee Member
Dr. Lindsay Smith
Third Committee Member
Dr. Erin Debenport
Fourth Committee Member
Dr. Allison Loconto
Recommended Citation
Smith, Geneva. ""Where the Land Ends": Knowing and Governing the Limits of Argentina's Soy Boom." (2020). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/anth_etds/190
