Framing genetically modified crops: where do women fit into the picture?

Abstract

abstract There are several different perspectives from which genetic modification (GM) technology has been criticised, including ecofeminism, environmentalism and anti-capitalism or anti-colonialism. Each of these frameworks for understanding the GM issue has important insights to offer, but also affects the strategies that activists adopt in their attempts to oppose the spread of GM technology. Strategies also depend on whether activism is seen as opposing or providing alternatives to GM technology. This focus looks at the way in which the GM issue has been constructed in Karnataka, India, where it has primarily been framed within an anti-colonialist, pro-farmer discourse. Analysing the issue through this lens has had several positive effects, including a foregrounding of the effects of GM technology on agricultural producers and several actions that have brought attention to the issue. Unfortunately, it has also meant that women's concerns and participation have been overlooked or sidelined. The anti-GM movement in Karnataka also includes groups and individuals who frame the GM debate as an environmental and social justice issue, focusing their work on seed conservation and organic farming, among other methods. This aspect of the movement has received less attention and is not entirely unproblematic, but it has opened up possibilities for increased participation by women in the movement, as well as for improvements in women's status and conditions.