De eso no se habla: Health hazards of GM soy production in Argentina

• In Event: Neoliberalismo y transformaciones agroalimentarias en Latinoamérica El impacto de los transgénicos I

Abstract

Over 20 million hectares are now covered with GM soy in Argentina, fields that require regular agrochemical spraying. In rural towns nearby soy fields, fumigating planes fly nearby, spraying toxic agrochemicals over people’s homes, schools, and hospitals. Many are thus getting sick: rates of cancer, leukemia, and miscarriages have increased in the rural ‘soy towns’ in Argentina. In consequence, many have organized in a struggle to defend health and life.
It is interesting however that considering the extent of sprayed fields, contestation is not widespread. While environmental health movements have emerged in several soy towns in Argentina, most remain quiescent. Is it because agrochemical spraying isn't a problem in these places? In this paper I narrate the exchanges among women in a ‘soy town’ in the Pampas. In close confidence, women would allow their fears and worries to arise, alarmed by rising cancer rates among neighbors and concerned for their children’s health. Most striking is that, despite their fears, these women would never attempt to find out more. Most on the contrary, by the time a doubt was raised, it was almost automatically suffocated: De eso no se habla, “We don’t talk about that,” they would say, and thus put a sudden end to our conversation.
Through an ethnographic account, this study explores how collective denial of environmental hazards is expressed in everyday practices and emotions (Auyero and Swistun 2009; Norgaard 2011; Zerubavel 2006). Findings are relevant to an analysis of grievance-formation, quiescence, and contestation against GM crops in Argentina.

Author

• Amalia Leguizamón, Tulane University