Diversifying Agri-food STS Scholarship Across Transnational Borders I

Session Submission Type: Open Panel

Abstract

We welcome papers on a wide range of agricultural and food topics, with a view to expanding STS scholarship into new areas. To date, much STS work on agri-food topics has focused on genetically engineered foods, the Green Revolution, and industrial agriculture. However, as Iles, Graddy-Lovelace, Montenegro, and Galt (2017) suggest, food systems are complex, multi-dimensional, and involve long supply/trade chains that stretch around the world. Agri-food STS is rapidly growing to encompass many ‘new’ sites, geographies, and agricultures. Possible topics include the regulation of food safety and pesticide risks, the politics of agroecological knowledge production vis-à-vis industrial food regimes, farmer-to-farmer learning exchanges, the growth of automation (e.g., drones and mechanized harvesters), and new generations of genetically engineered crops (e.g. CRISPR). The connections between nutrition and health are of interest. Corporations are developing and marketing an array of foods and diets for developing regions. Standards also continue to coordinate across huge agri-food infrastructures, and to define what sustainability means for supermarkets. Ongoing corporate consolidation is having a major impact on the nature of S&T in agri-food systems (e.g., seeds, chemicals, labor). In particular, we encourage contributions regarding agriculture and food systems in Australia, New Zealand, and the Asian region more broadly. We will organize specific panels around clusters of key themes and concepts, paying attention to stimulating transnational conversations between scholars working on these themes. We are especially interested in papers that critically appraise (1) efforts to foster sustainable intensification and (2) the development of alternative, sustainable agricultures.

Sub Unit

• Papers for Open Panels / Diversifying Agri-food STS scholarship Across Transnational Borders

Chairs

• Alastair Iles, UC Berkeley

• Gyorgy Scrinis, University of Melbourne

Individual Presentations

• Expert and public attitudes on the use of gene editing: An empirical study in Agri-food context - Naoko Kato-Nitta, The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Japan; Nagoya University, Japan; Tadahiko Maeda, The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Japan; Masashi Tachikawa, Nagoya University, Japan

• How Technologies, Identities and Idylls Can Steer Research Through Changing Agrifood Regimes - Peat Leith, University of Tasmania

• Processed Foods, Nutritionism and Food Corporations - Gyorgy Scrinis, University of Melbourne

• Unsettling Food Sovereignty in Australia - Christopher Mayes, Dea

Session Organizers

• Alastair Iles, UC Berkeley

• Gyorgy Scrinis, University of Melbourne