‘If there's no evidence, there's no victim’: undone science and political organisation in marginalising women as victims of DBCP in Nicaragua

ABSTRACT

Victims of pesticides are often disregarded when demanding reparations and political action because of the ‘undone science.’ Studies have examined how people organise to rectify the ‘undone science’, but less is known about how the ‘undone science’ permeates local organisations to direct their strategies in acknowledging some, but not others, as victims of pesticide contamination. Using the case of plantation workers’ struggle to demand redress for ailments caused by the pesticide Dibromochloropropane (DBCP) in Nicaragua, I analyse how what counts as ‘evidence’ shapes the struggle and how, in the process, women’s lived experience of harm is not prioritised.

KEYWORDS:

• Farmworkers
• feminist studies
• pesticides
• DBCP
• Nicaragua

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to farmworkers in Nicaragua. Special thanks to the three anonymous reviewers and participants of the JPS writing workshop 2020 for their suggestions and comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Also, to Joan Martínez-Alier, Dalena Tran and Arielle Landau. Any remaining errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This work was supported by H2020 European Research Council: [Grant Number Advanced Grant EnvJustice (No. 695446)].

List of interviews quoted in the text

Josefa (I1) former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Melina (I2) former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Rosa (I3) former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Carlos (I4) former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Julia (I5) former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

María (I6) former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Mateo (I7) former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Ana (I8) former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Juana (I9) former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Paula (I10), former banana worker. Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Mario (I11), former banana worker, Chinandega, Nicaragua 2018

Notes

1 Pesticides are substances to control insects, nematodes, unwanted plants and other pests that inhibit crop growth. Here I refer to ‘synthetic pesticides’ which are pesticides containing manufactured chemical compounds.

2 This was the Fusarium Wilt, a disease caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc). Which affected almost all banana plantations in Latin America (Soluri 2005). The first outbreak was in Panama hence its popular name.

3 Luis Anastacio Somoza Debayle was the second member of a right-wing family dictatorship aligned with US interests that lasted in Nicaragua from 1936 to 1979.

4 An internal conflict between the ‘Contras’, a US-funded rebel group, against the left-wing revolutionary Sandinista government. The war lasted from 1979 with the overthrew of Somoza until 1989 with the Tela Accord.

5 All real names have been labelled with pseudonyms to protect confidentiality.

6 Cases have been reported in Ecuador (Ejatlas 2015), The Philippines (Ejatlas 2016b), Honduras (Ejatlas 2017a), Ivory Coast (Ejatlas 2017b), and Panamá (Ejatlas 2018) (www.ejatlas.org) (c.f Martinez-Alier et al. 2016).

7 Other marketing brands used elsewhere are Nemafume, Nemanax, Nemaset, Nemacur, and Nematocide

8 Lannate 20 is DuPont’s marketing brand of methomyl, a carbamate insecticide.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Grettel Navas

Grettel Navas is a political ecologist working on toxic pollution, public health and environmental justice. She is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) and Associate Lecturer of the interdisciplinary Master Degree in Planetary Health from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). She completed her PhD at ICTA-UAB being part of the ENVJustice project (ERC-GA 695446). Grettel is also part of the Direction and Coordination Group of the global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) that documents environmental conflicts and resistance movements worldwide.