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Abstract
This article explores the struggle for legitimation associated with the attempt to define the risk of Bt cotton, a genetically modified crop, in Andhra Pradesh, India. Beck asserts that, given the uncertainty associated with risk society, efforts to define risk are creating the need for a new political culture. This article argues that this political culture emerges from attempts to legitimate power within risk definition. This is examined using critical discourse analysis on interview excerpts with key figures in the Bt cotton debate. Legitimation is explored using the categories of legitimation developed by Van Leeuwen. These are (a) authorisation; (b) moral evaluation; (c) rationalisation; and (d) mythopoesis. The analysis highlights that the political culture which emerges in response to risk society is in a state of constant flux and contingent upon the ongoing struggle for legitimation with regard to the definition of risk.
Acknowledgements
The research for this study was funded by the Irish Research Council and the W.J. Leen Scholarship at University College Cork and was undertaken in affiliation with the University of Hyderabad (UoH) in Andhra Pradesh. The author wishes to thank Dr Kathy Glavanis-Grantham, Dr Ger Mullally and Piet Strydom at UCC, as well as Professor Purendra Prasad at UoH, for their invaluable support with this project. She would also like to acknowledge Dr Nagaraju and Dr Haribabu in the Sociology Department at UoH for their informative seminars on Indian Sociology which were attended between July and December 2010. Finally, she would like to acknowledge the very helpful comments of an anonymous reviewer which greatly added to the structure and clarity of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. In 1996, a study conducted by Dr Arpad Pusztai at the Rowett Institute in Scotland found that rats fed with GM potatoes developed immune system dysfunction and organ abnormalities (Smith Citation2004, 15–31). Full details of the main concerns related to GM crops are available in Smith (Citation2007).
2. Andhra Pradesh is located on the south-eastern coast of peninsular India. The state was bifurcated in 2014, and the Telangana region became a separate state. Because the research was conducted prior to bifurcation, Andhra Pradesh remains the subject of analysis and is referred to in the present tense. Prior to bifurcation, it was the fourth largest of India’s 28 states by area (275,000 km2), and fifth by population (84 million inhabitants).
3. Ray (Citation2011), ‘India will be 2nd biggest economy by 2050: PWC’, Times of India, January 8, 2011.
4. Shrinivasan (Citation2010), ‘55% of India’s population poor’, Times of India, July 15, 2010.
5. Along with Andhra Pradesh, the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh account for over half of all farm suicides in India. Available at http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/farmers-suicide-rates-soar-above-the-rest/article4725101.ece. Accessed on 24 May 2013.
6. Srivastava, ‘AP’s poor groaning under debt trap’, Times of India, December 12, 2010.
7. It would appear that the wider diffusion of the technology arose as a result of a failure to adequately regulate field trials which began in 1995 and were conducted by Monsanto’s Indian affiliate, the seed company, Mahyco (Scoones 2005, 252–253).
8. Bt cotton is purportedly toxic only to organisms which contain receptors to Bt proteins – namely the Lepidoptera and Phthiraptera classes of insects (Karihaloo and Kumar Citation2009, 3). Nonetheless, cultivators and NGOs in Andhra Pradesh claim that sheep and buffalo have died as a result of grazing on the crop. It is argued that safety reports on Bt cotton have been developed in the United States where animals would not graze on the crop. In India, animals are often permitted to graze on the leaves and stalks left in the fields post-harvest. Animal deaths were reported in two of the villages featured in the wider study. In one of these, a number of buffalo were reported to have escaped and grazed on the Bt cotton fields. Villagers assert that, the next morning, half of the animals were dead. It is my own view that these deaths did occur, but were more likely due to the stronger pesticides used by some farmers as a result of insect resistance and new pests (sucking pests). This would, however, require further research.
9. Emerging from the Chicago School and students of Friedrich von Hayek, neoliberalism, as an economic philosophy, has developed increasing influence globally. Supported by the World Bank, it asserts a belief in individual freedom, the withdrawal of state intervention and a globalized free market as the basis for economic development. This has involved countries throughout the world in structural adjustment requiring currency devaluation, deregulation, privatization and trade liberalization. It has been widely critiqued for its contribution to increasing risk exposure worldwide (Stiglitz Citation2002; Klein Citation2007; Le Mons Walker Citation2008).
10. Available at http://business.rediff.com/column/2010/apr/01/guest-bt-cotton-monsanto-is-back-in-courts-over-royalty.htm. Accessed on 22 July 2013.
11. The interview with the rural NGO, CJ, involved the use of a translator.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
E. Desmond
Elaine Desmond completed a PhD thesis in Sociology in December 2013. This was undertaken at University College Cork (UCC), in conjunction with the University of Hyderabad (UoH), Andhra Pradesh. The thesis explored the legitimation of risk and democracy with regard to Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh. This involved one year’s fieldwork in three villages in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, as well as university attendance at UoH. Her interests include critical theory and political sociology, environmental risk, democracy and social/epistemic justice, as well as critical discourse analysis and ethnography. She teaches on the Sociology of the Environment, Research Methods and Globalization and Development courses at UCC.