Bioeconomic ideas and visions have received increasing attention from scientists and policy makers to address socioecological challenges. However, the role of imagined futures in the design of bioeconomic innovations and transitions has hitherto been widely neglected. In this study, we therefore explore the role of imaginaries of the future to understand how they shape bioeconomic innovations and transitions. We thereby build on insights from economic sociology and compare two distinct case studies from Germany and India. Based on our results, we inductively develop an analytic model that describes the coconstitution of imaginaries, fictional expectations, narratives, and innovation dynamics. Our results show that narrative dynamics are caused by irritations in the political and discursive landscape; these irritations prompt economic actors to stabilize, adapt, or reject their own bioeconomic conceptions, while the underlying imaginary of a technological fix remains fixed. We discuss this reductionist imaginary and instead plead for an imaginary of a socioecological fix that reintertwines technologies with their underlying societal, cultural, and ecological factors. We conclude that this will support sustainability scholars and policy makers in remaining vigilant against premature mental and institutional lock-ins that could lead to a colonization of the future with severe negative implications for society's ability to mitigate and adapt to global environmental change in the future.
Since its introduction in India, Bt ( Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton technology has been the object of controversial scholarly and non-academic debate. The recent return of pink bollworm ( Pectinophora gossypiella) pests in several Indian states has provided cause for concern about widespread resistances in Lepidopteran pests towards the endotoxins produced in Indian Bt cotton plants as well as about severe setbacks in regard to cotton farmers’ livelihood security. This study is the first to provide empirical evidence on the socio-economic consequences of recent bollworm attacks in India based on an exploratory study conducted in Karimnagar district, Telangana, India. It analyses the changed vulnerabilities that smallholders currently face and identifies the reasons why some peasant farmers can only deal with the consequences of this technological failure to a limited extent.
Abstract. In light of recent pink bollworm (PBW) pest infestations in several
cotton-producing states in India, farmers of genetically engineered Bt
cotton (Bt for Bacillus thuringiensis) have faced fierce criticism for their noncompliance with the national
insect resistance management (IRM) strategy. We argue that this criticism is
short-sighted and one-dimensional. Building upon the literature on policy
assemblages we show that the implementation of the IRM strategy in India was
seriously flawed due to government-induced mistranslations of foreign
strategies in the form of policy-diluting alterations. We first show that
India's IRM strategy differs substantially from successful strategies
pursued in the USA or China. Second, we present results from a
representative survey in the state of Telangana (n= 457) and show that
India's IRM strategy neglects moral economic considerations and
entrepreneurial agricultural logic that Indian cotton farmers strive for. We
conclude that pink bollworm pest infestations in India are not the fault of
farmers but rather the result of a mismanaged biotechnology project
undertaken by the Indian government and its associated responsible
ministries.
After genetically engineered Bt cotton lost its effectiveness in central and southern Indian states, pink bollworm infestations have recently returned to farmers’ fields and have substantially shifted their vulnerability context. We conceive Bt cotton as a neoliberal technology that is built to protect farmers only temporarily from Lepidopteran pests while ultimately driving the further concentration of capital. Based on data from a representative survey of the three major cotton-producing districts of the state of Telangana (n = 457), we find that pink bollworm pest infestations are a shock to farmers that lead to severe losses in yield and income. Using the vulnerability concept as a framework, we embed our findings in a political-economic context by drawing on Harvey’s notion of accumulation by dispossession. We argue that Bt cotton includes an inherent sociobiological obsolescence that results in a systematic dispossession of resource-poor households while providing appropriation opportunities for other actors. Finally, reproduced hegemonic structures facilitate the accumulation of capital through a redistribution of assets from the bottom to the top of the agricultural sector. Claims that considered Bt cotton as a pro-poor technology were thus flawed from the outset.
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