BT Cotton and the Voices of the Widows in the Face of Farmer-suicides

• In Event: Global Communication and Social Change Top Papers Session

Abstract

The post-liberalization agriculture is marked by an epidemic of farmer suicides in India. Amid the dominant discourse of dissemination of new agricultural technology of Bt cotton aided by communication framework of dissemination of messages for marketing of agricultural technologies, the voices of the farmers remain erased. Salient in the backdrop of high-yield narrative of Bt cotton are the everyday constructions of suicides among the farmers. The voices of the farmers disrupt the monolithic construction of the agricultural technologies as tools of modernization and progress. This article draws on the voices of the women in agrarian households that are especially salient amid patriarchal representations of decision-making in agriculture.

Authors

• Ashwini Falnikar, National U of Singapore (NUS)

• Mohan Jyoti Dutta, Massey U