Abstract
Starting from Marcel Mauss’ observation that “one has no right to refuse a gift”, this paper explores the politics of refusal in the context of field trials with genetically modified organisms in Flanders (Belgium). Based on a decade of activist research, and focusing on the genetically modified organism field trials of the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology, we show that the business model of this strategic research center – with its triple mission of carrying biotechnology research, technology transfer, and the promotion of biotechnology through communication and lobby activities – fosters a climate in which innovations in the technosciences have to “be accepted”. The future is laid out without including the possibility of refusal. Consternation is great when this is exactly what happens. Irrational fears and lack of understanding or lack of familiarity are invoked to explain refusal. Language of precision, innovation, safety, and control are deployed to re-assure the public. Refusal is not considered a legitimate option. Yet, if farmers and grassroots initiatives would accept the gift of genetically modified organisms, it would mean the acceptance of their dispossession and the impossibility of diverse food sovereignties. Starting from theoretical work on “the gift” and “the politics of refusal”, we argue that recognizing innovation as the intrinsically plural and divergent process it is, entails including options to refuse particular pathways as a first step to open up others. As we will argue, saying no to genetically modified organisms is part of saying yes to peasant autonomy, agrobiodiversity, and peoples’ food sovereignties.
Highlights
One has no right to refuse a gift. (Mauss 2002: 52)To refuse is to say no
The action triggered unprecedented political and academic outrage, which was intensely covered in the media and powerfully experienced at a personal level, after one of us got fired from her university position and was incriminated in court, and the other one was subjected to other tactics of intimidation
We focus on the role of this field trial in mediating science-in-society interactions
Summary
One has no right to refuse a gift. (Mauss 2002: 52)To refuse is to say no. But, no, it is not just that. One has no right to refuse a gift. To refuse can be generative and strategic, a deliberate move toward one thing, belief, practice, or community and away from another. In the morning of 24 April 1987, about 70 journalists gathered in a field in California to document the first authorized release of a genetically engineered microbe into the environment.. The microbe, genetically modified to increase frost resistance of fruits, had already slalomed a number of obstacles in its trajectory towards commercial diffusion. After three years of legal battle, and 14 years after molecular biologists first spliced genetic material from one bacterium into another to create a recombinant bacterium, strawberries coated with ice minus pseudomonas (trademarked as Frostban) were ready to confront the public eye. The night before the strawberries had to be sprayed, the Berkeley Greens uprooted a few thousands of the coated strawberry plants.
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