Agricultural biotechnology is a multi-billion dollar industry that has invoked global controversy. Despite the rapid commercialization of genetically modified (GM) agriculture, few studies have examined the process of regulation in places like Latin America where debates not only focus on the environmental, health and consumer choice issues seen in the United States but also on the socio-economic and cultural threats that GM agriculture poses to food security and provision. Debates in Latin America further address questions of "bioprospecting" and control over genetic resources and knowledge. The research will examine these issues in Guatemala where a conflictive national biosafety project, sponsored by the United Nations Environmental Program, resulted in an accord that could form the basis for future legislation. In 2006, the US Foreign Agricultural Service initiated a program to revise this accord to reflect the goals of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, recently signed amidst intense public protest. Within this context, how will biotechnology in agriculture be regulated? To complete this project, a multi-method research approach will be used, utilizing a combination of semi-structured interviews, archival work and participant observation. This research will bridge theoretical knowledge from numerous disciplines. GM regulation is part of broader processes of de-regulation and re-regulation under neoliberalism. Political ecology, recognizing the interplay of political economic and ecological factors, illuminates how GM agriculture is distinct because of natural properties that make it unpredictable. Drawing on development and post-colonial studies, the issue is to grasp the processes through which social actors deploy scientific expertise to make political claims. The question becomes whose knowledge counts as science? Answering this is not possible by positing "local" knowledge against the paradigm of development experts, but rather involves understanding how knowledge is constructed in ways reflecting unequal relationships of power.
Rather than focus on resistance to biotechnology in a Latin American context, this study will examine the politics of scientific expertise to analyze how knowledge related to biotechnology regulation is constructed and validated. The broader impacts for understanding the processes of negotiation and debate around the regulation of agricultural biotechnology are potentially global. The issue is of critical importance not only for economically poor, agricultural countries such as Guatemala, but also in the United States and European nations at the forefront of the biotechnology industry. Thus, this research will provide both a window into the future global regulation of agricultural biotechnology and offer a policy analysis of the problematic implementation of free trade. Through examining the politics of scientific expertise in agricultural biotechnology regulation, this project will further strengthen the participation of Guatemalan social groups in development policy, including traditionally underrepresented Mayan indigenous communities in a country that has only recently returned to democracy. Finally, a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award will enable the researcher to pursue long-term goals of teaching at the university-level in the United States.
