The world according to Monsanto

Yesterday I attended a presentation by the French journalist Marie-Monique Robin at the National Library in Buenos Aires. She talked about her investigations about the multinational corporation Monsanto, which has resulted in a book and a documentary called “The world according to Monsanto”. Monsanto is the world’s leading producer of the herbicide RoundUp, as well as genetically engineered seeds, like the RoundUp Ready soybean. The genetically engineered soybean was developed during the 1980s with the aim to survive the treatment by RoundUp. The genetically modified soybean was introduced in Argentina at the mid-90s, and has ensured a large share of the production ever since, which has given Monsanto an influential position. Argentina has proved to be the best student Monsanto could ever wish for, according to Robin. The genetically modified soybean production is the main responsible factor for the drastic increase of pesticide use in Argentina. This in turn has not only resulted in increasing numbers of people who get cancer and other health problems, but also in loss of biodiversity. Even if the genetically modified seeds and the RoundUp are very controversial, they are not controversial enough, according to some of the participants at the presentation yesterday. Apart from giving me an update on the practices by the multinational corporation, the event was interesting for my study due to the issues and arguments that were raised by the audience both during and after the presentation by Robin, which were closely connected to environmental justice.

Robin is just one among many who criticize the political lobbying practices Monsanto and the marketing of genetically modified seeds. She gave several examples of how Monsanto operates, and the strategies they use to conquer the market. One of the strategies which she revealed is of how the corporation has paid scientists to produce false or misleading studies that deny any connection between their products and the health of people who have been exposed to them. A central illustration is the case of “Agent Orange” which was developed and produced by Monsanto, and used in Vietnam by the Americans to kill the vegetation in their warfare program. The herbicide was sprayed over huge areas, and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, and many children were born with birth defects. The American soldiers who were exposed to the dioxins and the herbicide were also affected, but due to a study performed by scientists paid by Monsanto, who concluded that there was no connection between the health problems they developed and the exposure to Agent Orange, they had to wait for compensation. New studies at the beginning of the 90’s finally revealed that there was a connection, and some of the American veterans have been able to lift some compensation. None of the Vietnamese population has received any form of compensation. This is leading material for environmental justice studies, since the story does not end with the ban of Agent Orange. RoundUp has been a source of ongoing controversy since it has been argued that it leads to cancer, and the story with corrupt scientists who have been paid by Monsanto goes on, according to Robin.

The practice of patenting the genetically engineered seeds like Monsanto does was described by Robin as “privatization of life”. There have been several laws suits against farmers in Canada and the U.S. that have concerned patent infringement. Some farmers have unknowingly grown patented seeds on their land which has been brought by winds from neighbouring crops. These farmers have been sued for depriving Monsanto of the full enjoyment of the patent.

There were close to 200 people who listened to Robin’s presentation. At the stage with her were three women from Cordoba who were members of a movement called “Concerned Mothers”. They gave some vivid, however very tragic, examples of what is currently happening in their vicinity, and I could not help but make connections to previous environmental justice movements that so often seem to be lead by concerned mothers. They accounted for all the cases of children who have different forms of cancer and other health problems which they connected to the use of pesticides on the surrounding farms, and how their insights lead them to “go out on the streets”. One of the women called Sofia described how her five year old son had developed a skin reaction that the doctor that treated him assumed was caused by a chemical burn. Her son had not played with any chemicals; he had only climbed a tree in their garden. When investigating the issue she found out that a farmer had been spraying the fields earlier that same day, and that her son had got a reaction from the pesticide. Often the farmers use small aircrafts to spread the chemicals over the fields, and it goes without saying that it ends up in places outside of the fields as well. And this is happening here and now in Argentina. When analysing what these concerned mothers said, it was interesting to notice that stated that they had to learn about chemicals and to talk about issues that they previously had no ideas about. “We were forced to learn to talk about agrochemicals” one of the women said. Another of the three women said that they do not want any more studies, they want political action. When answering a question from the audience about what role the media in Cordoba has played, the women said that they have received attention, but still there is not anyone who is taking action. So, while one of the organizers cautioned us to remember what the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo accomplished, saying that it would be possible for the Concerned mothers of Cordoba to reach their goals as well, the majority of the comments from the audience were more pessimistic. Several of the people who managed to get the microphone to express their opinion in the assembly hall directed the attention to corruption as an obstacle to accomplish any changes in the unhealthy agricultural practices.

One of the comments at the event last night was given by an elderly female nutritionist who raised the issue of how the genetically modified soybean has been promoted as a way to reduce hunger, and as the “poor man’s meat”. Thereby she gave attention to a central issue in environmental justice studies, namely the relationship between economic status and exposure to environmental risk. The woman received ovations among the audience. The meeting was finished when the situation turned somewhat rebellious after some comments from the audience. Among others one from a farmer who stated that just as there are good and bad scientists and good and bad politicians, there are good and bad farmers, and not all are evil. He continued that Monsanto could not be blamed for the disappearance of the market, and the reduced prices for cotton and sunflower seeds among other crops. The audience did not agree, and several shouted at the farmer that he should shut up. Just as it was interesting to notice what comments that received ovations, it was intriguing to notice which received resistance since it says something about the attitude among the group of people. Judging from the analysis of what comments that were objected and what were honoured, I conclude that the majority of the audience were very critical of the genetically modified crops and use of pesticides. Unfortunately I have too little information about what people were there, and I can only connect what I heard to something an agronomist I talked to last week said. She mentioned that during all her education at the university, no one ever questioned the use of genetically modified crops or the extensive use of pesticides. That is why it is rewarding to know that before coming to the National Library, the Concerned Mothers hade been talking with students at the Agronomy Department.

The friction of thinking globally and acting locally

This week I have been accompanied by a book by Anna Tsing called Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connections (2005). Here Tsing unravels a net of relations, including rhetoric, allegories, knowledge, actors and as the title states – their global connections. In chapter 6 she describes how environmental movements attempt to mobilize the general public for a cause and the devices they use in their work. It is the occupation of friction, or “the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across difference” that influences these encounters that her analysis focuses on (2005:4). Friction is needed to create something new, and she derives the concept from an illustration of a wheel which simply just would not cause any motion without the encounter with a surface. Friction can offer creative possibilities for social mobilization, but this requires attention to the “awkwardness of translation” (2005:211).

Translation is a central concept through her analysis. Another characteristic approach is that she performs a symmetrical analysis and focus on heterogeneous perspectives of environmental care and use, and the “remaking [of] ideas, practices, and local, regional, and global histories. Only in this analytically symmetrical treatment can the difference between landscape destruction and the struggle for life shine through.” (2005:212). Just like Tsing, I believe that it is important to attempt to take the field further and not just add another story of disastrous projects of transnational corporations and corrupt politicians. It becomes important to focus on competing environmental perspectives, and to learn about how knowledge moves.

An interesting example which she gives is the description of the “success” of Chico Mendes, the Brazilian rubber tapper union leader. She recounts how an Indonesian activist tells a story to some local villagers that starts out with Mendes and continues with the Chipko movement. “A distinctive feature of the travels of the Chico Mendes story was its travel through the north. It is the story northern environmentalists made of Mendes that became significant elsewhere” (2005:234). With the Chipko movement Tsing illustrates how a social movement can undergo multiple cultural translations (2005:235). These international stories become “social interventions”, as she calls them, which can be compared with “critical interruptions” as Pezzullo (2001) proposes.

Through her field work, Tsing spent a lot of time with different activists. She notices how activists spend much time travelling and in workshops trading stories of success and failure. Activists further borrow allegories, which Tsing calls “charismatic packages” (2005:227). These can be made up of images, songs, morals, organizational plans or stories, and they all speak to the possibilities to making a cause heard. “Traveling packages are translated to become interventions in new scenes where they gather local meanings and find their place as distinctive political interventions.” (2005: 238) Thereby the possibilities to make a cause heard, is dependent on the political and cultural context, or location. The concept translation both speaks to the transformation of a charismatic package to a new context, as well as to the literal interpretation from Indonesian to English for example. By domesticating the foreign a form of translation takes place. Another strategy is to portray environmental damage as being both local and global in order to enrol more actors (2005:217). Her book has a lot to offer to my study since she focuses on travelling forms of activism and knowledge. Nowhere has the use of advances in scientific knowledge as a force for global progress been more evident than in the field of environmental conservation (Tsing 2005:12).

Her analysis has much to offer studies of environmental movements, and especially for those who want to understand what means and methods that are used, and the intersections between the global and the local. She has an intersectionist perspective, and states that “Social justice goals must be negotiated not only across class, race, gender, nationality, culture, and religion, but also between the global south and the global north” (Tsing 2005:13) In Indonesia a public reading of a poem by Taufiq Ismail in 1971 is said to have inaugurated the national environmental movement (Tsing 2005:28). The poem raised the issue of Japanese traders who plundered the wood of the forest. For a time, environmentalism was the only pluralist social justice movement in Indonesia. It became a context to imagine what was politically possible (2005:231). “For most of the this time, the movement imagined itself as coordinating already existing but scattered and disorganized rural complaints. Activists’ jobs, as they imagined it, involved translating subaltern demands into the languages of the powerful, including English.” (Tsing 2005: 17-18)

Tsing deals a lot with universalism in her book, and she claims that these universals manage to mobilize people. “The knowledge that makes a difference in changing the world is knowledge that travels and mobilizes, shifting and creating new forces and agents of history in its path.” (Tsing 2005:8) But it is also important to notice that universals are constantly reformulated through dialogue. “To turn to universals is to identify knowledge that moves – mobile and mobilizing – across localities and cultures” (Tsing 2005:7). Here I cannot help but thinking about the slogan at the Earth Day last year – “Pensando globalmente – actuando localmente”.

National environmental discourses and Villa Inflamable

In order to get a deeper understanding of the environmental research in Argentina, and thereby be able to locate the place of my study, I have read some literature on national environmental studies. I am interested in what an Argentinean environmental discourse in the research might look like. To make a simple example, will the case of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) show up as frequently as it does as a motivation for environmental studies in Sweden? Many researchers credit Carson for directing attention to the environment since she convincingly connected the everyday use of chemicals with environmental degradation in her book. Or is there some other case or book that does? My expectation is that the conflict surrounding the Botnia paper mill will be among the more frequently sited issues for raising environmental awareness in Argentina, but of course that is too early to say. The geographer Carlos Reboratti, whom I spoke to during the past week, directed my attention to the book Memoria Verde, or Green Memories, which the translation to English would have it, by Antonio Brailovsky and Dina Fougelman. Reboratti mentioned that it could possibly be the Argentinean equivalent to Silent Spring. I will have to get back on that later, since there were no copies left at the bookstores. The question about the influence of academics in the national discourse arises, as well as the interplay between public discourse and academic discourse. I get to think about how Anthony Giddens (1989) argues about the relationship through the hermeneutic circle between social sciences and society. Since many environmental problems are closely connected to scientific interpretations of nature, I believe this is central. But the issue also concerns the question of engagement in the research, which is mostly run under the heading of action research, or even participatory action research.

This last week I have read Inflamable – estudio del sufrimiento ambiental by Javier Auyero and Débora Swistun (2008). The book will probably come out in English soon. It is an excellent piece of work in its ethnographically rich description of the life in a “villa” located in the Buenos Aires area, as well as in its theoretical contribution to the understanding of collective action caused by environmental suffering – or rather its absence. Inflamable is the name of the neighbourhood in the district of Avellaneda, and it derived the name after the explosion and fire at the petroleum ship Perrito Moreno in 1984. The central issue that the study deals with is how the residents makes sense of the environmental suffering involved in the everyday life in the neighbourhood with the nauseating stench, the polluted water, toxic land and heaps of waste which are characteristic of the area. In distinction to several other studies within the field of environmental justice, this particular study rather treats the reconstruction of ignorance, and the absence of (successful) collective action.

The ethnography offers a good description of the interplay among various actors in the area – lawyers, doctors at the health centre, representatives for multinational companies like Shell, media reporters, investigators and teachers who all offers their interpretation of the suffering. An actor which could have had a role (or perhaps even should have had a role), is the State. But the state is absent in Inflamable, and the residents do not know to whom to make claims or demands. This concerns citizenship, and the relationship between individual and collective responsibility, and trust among actors, as I see it. I would argue that in order to understand collective action it is vital to get to grips with the relationship between citizens and the state, and how they trust or distrust each other. Many of the environmental justice movements concern marginalized groups of people, and an aspect of marginalization is to have no clear idea of towards whom to make claims and demands for services. Auyero and Swistun argue that there is a lack of intervention by the State in Inflamable, and even a general “public indifference” (2008: 36, 106, 137). It is important to return to the notion of Inflamable as an inhabitable place, but also to acknowledge the fact that the area has experienced immigration both from the Argentine countryside as well as from Bolivia and Peru.

In Argentina the inequalities between social groups have increased, showing deterioration distribution of funds with half of the population living below the poverty line (Auyero & Swistun 2008:47). Inflamable deals specifically with how the citizens of Inflamable make sense of environmental risk and problems and the connected social suffering. Just like Auyero and Swistun argue, it is hard to believe that poor people who have little education should be well informed about the concrete effects of toxic waste for example (Auyero & Swistun 2008:140). A central trait in the book is thus the focus on uncertainty, ambiguity and confusion. In Inflamable there is an “almost complete absence of collective action against the toxic threat” (Auyero & Swistun 2008:22, my interpretation). In the environmental justice movement literature it is possible to detect a period of learning, and what would be called a cognitive liberation or conscientization (ibid:25). Here it is useful to make a brief detour to a critical article by Phaedra Pezzullo (2001) who analyses how the attention given to an environmental movement influences the same group of people. In Warren County, in North Carolina, the community reacted against the construction of a toxic waste landfill. The movement in Warren County has been narrated countless times and has become a symbolic struggle in many ways. Even if there has been an abundance of descriptions of their success the movement itself believes that their struggle is incomplete, and they consequently attempt to continue to interrupt the hegemonic discourse. The case that Pezzullo draws attention to concerns what can be called a “mythification” of the environmental justice struggles and their success, and how the struggles seldom manages to change the structure that causes the problems to start with, like discrimination, racism and social inequalities. Here it is helpful to introduce the concept symmetry, which implies that we need to analyze both the success and the failure of social movements to accomplish their goals, something which Auyero and Swistun do. Just like Pezzullo cautions in relation to how to judge the success of an environmental movement, “[i]t is not enough to gain a place at environmental decision making tables” (ibid:3) Pezzullo uses the concept “critical interruption” to investigate the events in Warren County, and it concerns how citizen groups can “reframe the narratives that sustain oppressive environmental conditions” (Pezzullo 2001:1). The rhetorical device of connecting racism and environment caused a “critical interruption” by its juxtaposition that managed to draw attention to their case. In Inflamable it is not evident whether there have been any critical interruptions at all, and that is one of the arguments of the book.

Taking as a point of departure the interest in responsibility and accountability for environmental problems and their solution, the book raises a lot of important issues. For example, from a moral perspective it is possible to ask who is to blame for the poor health of the people in the neighbourhood of Inflamable? Is it possible that the multinational oil company Shell has any liability? Shell has been active in the area for decades, and previously it used lead in its production. Or are some of the number of other chemical companies and their activities? Or are the people themselves responsible since they have been bringing back toxic recyclable material like car batteries and filled up the land with toxic waste in order to be able to construct their dwellings, as representatives for the companies in the area argues? Whoever is to blame, many of the children and adults show symptoms of severe illness, like headache, rashes, tiredness, and when examined they show comparably high levels of lead in the blood. Simultaneously as many actors tend to blame the victim for causing themselves ill health, they often argue in a contradictory manner that the area is not fit for humans and that people shouldn’t be living here (2008:76).

The authors also give a methodological contribution by reflecting on their 2.5 years long ethnographic field work, including moral dilemmas and how to stand the polluted environment. The area of ambiguity and confusion are central here as well. “Very seldom we get to read ethnographic texts where the people hesitate, commit errors and contradict themselves”, they write (Auyero & Swistun 2008:30 my interpretation). Another of their methodological approaches in the study was to let school children take pictures with disposable cameras of the good and bad about the neighbourhood. This seems like a rewarding method to get an idea of the image that the residents have of their neighbourhood, and a way to grasp their view of risks and problems.

One of their wider objectives with the book concerns action research is a way, since they want to get the reader to start thinking about environmental suffering as an urgent issue for citizenship (Auyero & Swistun 2008:217). The relationship between environmental suffering and health is an rising public theme in current Argentine politics, even if the unequal distribution of risks and suffering among the most vulnerable systematically seems to be treated as something less pressing (Auyero & Swistun 2008:216).

In conclusion, and even if the result is somewhat discouraging from a democratic perspective, Inflamable is an important contribution to anyone interested in environmental risk and suffering, environmental justice and collective action, and perhaps it will be one of the silent springs of Argentina.

Recently arrived

A week ago I arrived in Buenos Aires, the city that never sleeps and which is described in the traveller’s bible Lonely Planet as an “electrifying city”. My aim is to perform a field study of how different actors understand the responsibility for the state of the Argentinean environment. An obvious starting point for comparison from a Swedish perspective is the public transportation system, since public transportation often is mentioned as a “greener” alternative to travelling by car. I am consequently attempting to understand “La Guia T”, along with the map. La Guia, or The Transportation Guide Book, is an excellent booklet that covers all the hundreds of buses that crisscross the city, day and night. On each of the 42 pages that cover the central area of Buenos Aires, the map is divided into smaller units, and on the opposite side the node is correlated with the buses that pass by. It makes up an intricate system of street names, bus numbers and coordinates. In distinction to all the things that may seem disorganized here, the streets are properly numbered so that you can keep yourself posted on your position as the bus advances from one place to the other. For example, when you pass Plaza Italia on Avenida Santa Fe with Bus number 152, you will know that the numbers on the houses to your right will stretch from 4200 to 4100. Very orderly. But as an anthropologist, it strikes me how thoroughly connected the bird’s perspective of the map is with the understanding of the social context and the local surrounding of buildings, parks, streets and neighbourhoods. Thereby the attempt to understand La Guia and the map is a suitable metaphor for my attempt to understand the city and the culture, in order to be able to make sense of the processes that interests me. As the bus moves on I see grafitti covered walls outside of the window, publicity for local and national politicians, ads for shampoo and Coca Cola, and one of the many professional dog-walkers (or paseaperros as they are known in the local language) that manage a dozen of dogs in a the net of leashes. I lay my eyes on some governmental posters that say that good citizens need to throw garbage in the rubbish bins, and another that say that people should not use as many plastic bags since they contaminate the water system. These posters seem very much in line with the campaign “Keep Sweden Tidy” that managed to construct a norm of cleanliness in Sweden, which makes it amoral to litter. As we pass the posters, the bus driver stops and lets more travellers to enter, and I notice how a woman asks for change of a 2 pesos bill for some coins. The issue of monedas, or coins for the bus ride, has reached huge dimensions lately when the prices for a ride went up from 1 peso to 1 peso and 10 cents. The bus driver doesn’t change bills and therefore you need to hold on to the change when you pay for something if you want to be able to get on a bus. I have learned that if someone asks if you can change a bill – you simply lie, and hold on to your precious bus money.

My intent is to devote at least a year for this project and this field study of the Argentine society, and the position of environmental politics here. Even if this is not my first encounter with the city or the porteño culture, I feel a bit shy and insecure. Will my ideas make sense? Will it be possible to accomplish the projects which I have been planning and thinking about for months mainly during sleepless nights? Will my research experience of field work from Sweden and Mexico be enough? And not the least, will I be able to concentrate on the projects when there are so many electrifying attractions around? Another issue that strikes me, and remember that anthropological field work is a lot about reflection, is that the idea to use the transportation system as an introduction to “the field” was something which entered my mind several months ago. Does this mean that I am only confirming existing ideas rather than discovering them? However, the whole idea of “discovery” is something which I myself have been criticizing from a postcolonial perspective since it carries the notion that it is possible to get to “know the other”. So, lacking better ways to describe what it is that I aim to do, I will simply state that I want to learn to view the world from the perspectives of the actors that are involved in the environmental politics here in Argentina.

Since I still have projects to work on in Sweden, I cannot yet fully devote myself to the field work, and I can only attempt to get in touch with contacts that I believe will be important, and keep my mind open towards issues that seem significant. In line with the aim to document the field work I have signed up for an evening course on documentary film making and I now hope that I will be able to complement the major hit “Body Politics in the Bathroom” with new videos.