Transgenic Crops in Latin America: Expropriation, Negative Value and the State

Abstract

This paper introduces a symposium on transgenic crops and neoliberalism in Latin America. We address the question: What is the relationship between the neoliberal food regime and transgenic crops in Latin American agriculture? Our goals are, first, to provide the main conceptual definitions and analytical parameters to contextualize the case studies that follow; and, second, using the findings of our contributors as our empirical stepping stone, to briefly elaborate the concepts of expropriation, accumulation by dispossession and negative value as the primary consequences of the neoliberal food regime. We also offer a brief description of each of the papers in the symposium that follows, linking them to our theoretical proposal. We hope this symposium will help in further exploration of the connection between GM crops and the larger dynamics of capitalist development worldwide.