Utopia, Food Sovereignty, and Ethical Fashion: The Narrative Power of anti-GMO Campaigns

ABSTRACT

The idea of utopia has become pervasive in the age of everyday humanitarianism. Digital media communicate utopian ideas that allow people to “do good” for vulnerable others and the environment. At the same time, campaigns mobilize citizens by invoking apocalyptic images, such as genetically modified (GM) “monster” foods. This article looks at the construction of utopian and apocalyptic narratives in social movement campaigns and how they contribute to the construction of identities in the campaigns against GM food and Bt cotton, especially in India. Based on an analysis of campaign material, we show that “organic food” and “ethical cotton” products would be less successful without the concurrent use of apocalyptic narratives. Narratives that are more radical enabled the anti-GM food movement to mobilize large resistance. By contrast, a more inclusive narrative approach in the cotton/textile sector risks supporting interests that are detrimental to social justice and environmental protection.

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.

Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1981)

Introduction

The idea of utopia has fascinated people for centuries. Thinking beyond the possible and the goal of creating “better” societies has become pervasive in the age of everyday humanitarianism which accounts for the “expansion of the willingness of humans to incorporate the suffering and welfare of others into their everyday decisions.”¹ Taking care of the environment has become an important part of everyday humanitarianism and ideas of utopia play a key role in this “everyday environmentalism.” Social movements make use of utopian narratives to mobilize people to “do good” for vulnerable others and the environment. At the same time, campaigns invoke apocalyptic images, such as genetically modified (GM) “monster foods,” “terminator seeds,” and “food colonialism” to provoke action. This article looks at the construction of utopian and apocalyptic narratives in social movement campaigns that constitute humanitarianism in the everyday.

We are particularly interested in the mediation of narratives and how they contribute to the construction of identities in everyday humanitarianism and everyday environmentalism, more specifically, in the transnational campaigns against GM food and Bt cotton, especially in India. The use of GM organisms (GMOs) is one of the most hotly debated environmental topics and, more than for any other issue, movements have used both utopian and apocalyptic narratives in their campaigns. Genetically modified food and cotton products face considerable scrutiny in India and many other countries around the world. However, while in some countries such as Germany less than one percent of the commercially cultivated food contains GMOS,² GMOs are far more established in the cotton sector, where the worldwide share of GM cotton is seventy-five percent.³ This article seeks to understand this difference in terms of social movements’ ability to mobilize people around utopian and apocalyptic narratives, and how they enable and limit the expression of an identity as an ethical consumer in everyday environmentalism.

Based on an analysis of campaign material and related media outlets, we explore utopian and apocalyptic narratives in both anti-GM food and anti-Bt cotton campaigns. Research on environmental politics has engaged with the deconstruction of narratives used in everyday humanitarianism⁴ and positive stories of the GM industry, in which GMOs are framed as a “pro-poor” technology.⁵ What puzzles us in this article is the tension between utopian and apocalyptic narratives in public media discourse, and how they create different identities of ethical consumerism. We are interested in what narrative power movements gain from, on the one hand, the construction of utopia (“food sovereignty” with empowered consumers and producers alike) and, on the other hand, the construction of apocalypse (“food colonialism” with indebted farmers suicide). We argue that, if social movements communicate apocalyptic narratives – pessimistic future scenarios of imminent crisis – they can mobilize many people. However, only in connection with utopian narratives – optimistic narratives presenting desirable future scenarios – that invoke an affirmative vision, movements are able to produce ethical and political subjects, that is, identities of ethically minded and collectively engaged people. Contemporary environmentalism unfolds its power in the everyday by creating such identities of ethically minded and collectively engaged people.

This article has five parts: first, we will outline the transformative role utopian and apocalyptic narratives play in the context of International Relations (IR) research. Second, we will discuss how these narratives produce identities and how they enable or inhibit the capacity for movements to make a change in the age of everyday environmentalism with the increasing relevance of digital media. Third and fourth, we will illustrate the interaction of utopian and apocalyptic narratives in garnering support with cases of campaigns related to the introduction of GM food and Bt cotton products. Given these campaigns have a particular focus on India, so does our analysis. Fifth, we will compare the results and conclude that, on the one hand, apocalyptic narratives tend to disempower and paralyze people, instead of convincing them of the opportunity for long-term change. On the other hand, utopian narratives and visions of an imagined future still need the apocalyptic narrative to unfold their full power in everyday environmentalism. Although anti-Bt cotton movements also started from an apocalyptic narrative equally as strong as “food colonialism,” this narrative was not taken up in the same way by international civil society organizations and global media. Instead, the utopian narrative of ethical consumption is more visible in the cotton and textile sector. However, this more inclusive narrative of ethical consumption that prevails in international cotton/textile campaigns risks supporting interests that are detrimental to social justice and environmental protection. In particular, the activists have more difficulty convincing people of arguments against GMOs in cotton cultivation. We will discuss in which ways utopian and apocalyptic narratives can help us to better understand the varying impact of campaigns and their effect on self-representation in everyday environmentalism.

Utopian and Apocalyptic Narratives and the Possibility of Action in Everyday Environmentalism

Utopian ideas have always inspired people. Probably more than any other work, Thomas More’s Utopia, published in 1516, illustrates the power of a vision that enables people to think about alternative ways of living together in a society.⁶ Change toward such an imagined future is seen as a progression from the way society is organized today toward, for instance, more justice, equality, peace, humanity, or sustainability. Utopias contribute to political debates about how the world ought to be, how we should live together and how to lead a “good life.”⁷ However, utopias are often dismissed as practically implausible or normatively undesirable.⁸ This is because utopian ideas are said to neglect complex realities of the political world. Moreover, these simplified realities are not necessarily normatively desirable. For example, the Islamic State stands for a political utopia that others see as violent and unjust. Despite the normative ambiguity of utopian ideas, “moral ideals are an integral and necessary part of the practice of international politics.”⁹ Constructivist International Relations (IR) scholars have probably most explicitly pointed out that norms and ideas matter, and that activists and civil society act on strong ideals and a vision of what “ought to be.”¹⁰ In that way, constructivist scholarship exemplifies the importance of visions in IR to bring about change and ultimately progress, however defined. As Michael Barnett pointed out, society is unlikely to move “without the existence of moral imagination – a willingness to imagine the relationship between the here and now and what might be ultimately desirable.”¹¹

Utopia is a vision and finds its expression in narratives. Narratives are embedded in social and political discourses and connect different actions and actors, relate the present with the past and future, and therewith link what is with what ought to be. With regard to utopian politics, narratives enable an idealist vision to become a possible future. As a classical example, Alexander Wendt showed how Gorbachev’s “new thinking” about the nature of IR was the first stage of a radical process of change in the 1980s.¹² His new thinking intentionally broke away from the consensus about identity commitments, specifically the belief that relations between capitalist and socialist states are inherently conflictual, and eventually, this process flowed into a structural transformation, which brought about the end of the Cold War. This change is ultimately linked to the utopian narratives of the time that promised a “world without borders” and a potential cosmopolitan order based on human rights.¹³ What has been regarded as “unthinkable” and utopian at one point in time has changed and become not only “thinkable,” but also normal to many people, an observation that also applies to other “commonsensical” and seldom questioned liberal norms such as women’s rights, democratic participation, or freedom for people of color. But while utopias are often portrayed as beneficial for all, they do not always lead to “better” futures for everyone. While the end of the Cold War was a step toward a more peaceful and open world for some, it depicted the erosion of a socialist dream and the victory of an exploitative capitalist system for others.

Scholars have emphasized particularly the empowering potential of new media technologies (for example, blogs) to invent “novel discourses of counter-institutional subversion and collective activism” (despite limitations, see below).¹⁴ Media plays a crucial role in selecting and shaping narratives, especially in the field of humanitarianism. As Bob explains, even in the world of human rights, there is a marketing game to be played if campaigns are to be successful. For instance, while Tibet’s quest for self-determination has attracted media attention abroad, few outsiders know that China’s borders hold other restive minorities (for example Zhuang, Yi, Hui, and Uighurs).¹⁵ Several scholars have outlined the selective character of everyday humanitarianism in consequence to the need for “selling” ethical products.¹⁶ Nygren, for instance, explains how ethical consumption builds upon images of producers in the Global South as authentic and exotic “others.”¹⁷ The stories behind the products are crucial to the sale, and images of people are carefully selected. For example, forest certification initiatives do not choose pictures of people sawing timber barefoot or carrying planks on their shoulders on muddy slopes. There is little consideration of the terms of Southern producers’ participation in ethical markets, the distribution of benefits and constraints amongst actors involved in certification, or the fact that most Southern producers have “no sophisticated products, no fascinating stories, no marvellous landscapes, and no exotic faces” for sell.¹⁸

Utopias do not stand alone; rather, they are – explicitly or implicitly – created against the contrasting imageries of the apocalypse. For instance, while the narrative of a “world without borders” fueled the end of the Cold War, Hayden and el-Ojeili show that free trade can also mean “a threatening dystopian predicament” and involves narratives of a regulative “race to the bottom,” growing inequality, or cultural imperialism to name a few.¹⁹ In environmental politics, apocalyptic narratives are particularly present. Movements have used symbolism of the apocalypse to challenge dominant stories, such as “green growth,” that is, the compatibility of environmental protection and economic growth.²⁰ In climate change, the logic of the apocalypse “constructs a universal threat on a planetary scale, invokes humanity as a collective victim, anticipates the end of time, and draws on religious fantasmatic images.”²¹ Fear is a central part of the story of climate change and it is sustained by an apocalyptic narrative that does not promise redemption.²² This narrative of universal threat is so overwhelming that it actually prevents necessary political and societal changes, as it depicts a “depoliticized imaginary,”²³ and assigns responsibility to risk management and bureaucracy.²⁴ While one could argue that apocalyptic narratives do not empower people or engage them on a deeper level, but paralyze them instead and thus hinder political action, the suggestion that we are all doomed comes with a “but unless…” call for action (options for such political action include participation in movement campaigns, such as described below). Hence, while new media technologies in particular might allow the creation of novel narratives, “[w]ithout the imagery of apocalypse,” as John Dryzek points out, “there is no inbuilt radicalism” to the utopian discourse of sustainable development.²⁵ Hence, the imaginary of utopia cannot be separated from the imaginary of the end. We argue that a utopian idea needs the foil of the apocalypse to function and to unfold its full power to enable change, while the apocalypse is hard to bear without the thought of a possible “better” future. In everyday environmentalism, where digital campaigning prevails, this means that the way campaigns can activate action is related to their ability to mediate suffering and the duty to care through apocalyptic and utopian narratives alike.

Social Movements, Media Campaigns, and the Creation of Identities of Ethical Consumers

Humanitarian as well as environmental organizations make use of utopian and apocalyptic narratives in their media campaigns to create support for their causes. Narratives create subject positions within a discourse, and there with specific identities that allow people to situate themselves in relation to others.²⁶ The way utopian and apocalyptic narratives create identities matters, because narratives constitute subjectivities and hence possibilities of individual social action. This is significant, especially within everyday environmentalism, as it is the subjective feeling of individuals that allows the inclusion of “the suffering and welfare of others into their everyday decisions.”²⁷ By creating narratives that invoke an identity of an ethical consumer who cares for distant others or the environment, consumption becomes a way to act ethically through the (non-)purchase of material goods, such as food or clothes.²⁸ At the same time, buying products that are socially and environmentally “good” becomes part of the self-identity formation process.²⁹ Yet, it remains debatable in which way narratives create identities of ethically minded consumers who are independent from structural constraints and hegemonic discourses.

While constructivists have mainly been busy explaining how subjectivity is socially constituted and “would-be revolutionaries”³⁰ are themselves effects of socialization to structures, many of them acknowledge both subject (“me”) and self (“I”).³¹ In this vein, Chouliaraki points to the regulative potential of new media to control discourse and, in doing so, to reproduce the power asymmetries that movements actually seek to challenge. However, this does not preclude the possibility of subversive action and the potential for empowerment.³² The new media may favor self-mediation in the sense of people “speaking out” about themselves without any attempt of transformative change. Although Tibetans receive much more media attention compared to other Chinese minorities, each minority receives several hundred thousand links on Google, and search results are headed by specialized Wikipedia entries. There tends to be a chance for everyone and every issue to at least become visible through digital media.

Therefore, besides being subject to structure, people are agents, too. While movements are subject to media discourse and thus reproduce positions, they can also strategically use new technologies for political action. On the one hand, in their campaigns, movements reproduce subject positions; for instance, by referring to forest communities as exotic others. On the other hand, movements may also proactively engage in creating new narratives of empowered agents, which enable “new thinking.” In the case of everyday environmentalism, with its key dimension of mediatization, narratives imply that an individual change of behavior contributes to a structural transformation of the system. This mutual constitution of agency and structure derives in the practices of these movements and their use of narratives in their organizational and – increasingly digital – campaign work.

Utopian and apocalyptic narratives are essential to movements to mediate their objectives as well as to create ethical and political subjects; that is, ethically minded and collectively engaged people. Put simply, one could argue that within a utopian narrative, a subject identifies herself as visionary and optimistic, and, within an apocalyptic narrative, she identifies as pessimistic and disillusioned. However, it is not clear which narratives mobilize action and bring about political change.³³ Veldman, for instance, argues that narratives of environmental apocalypticism motivate activism, because they provide a compelling moral message.³⁴ This moral message creates a specific subject who is driven to act in light of the imminent catastrophe. Similarly, other authors showed that symbols such as the doomsday clock, which depicts the likelihood of a global catastrophe for human civilization, enable securitization.³⁵ While these scholars understand apocalyptic narratives as having an important function in mobilizing action, others reject this assessment and argue that stories of the apocalypse have led to “feelings of helplessness and isolation” instead,³⁶ creating passive rather than active subjects. In consequence, Wittmayer et al. highlight the importance of movements’ power to envision more strategic work on transitions, explore more radical innovation trajectories, and formulate alternative goals and agendas.³⁷

Utopian narratives stimulate moral imaginations in a positive way, and create different subjects than apocalyptic narratives. Utopian narratives are not necessarily directed against something or someone (for example industrialized agriculture and respective corporations), but because of their reference of what “ought to be” on a broader scale, they target broader, structural changes. Pitkin emphasizes that “(o)ne man…may have power to do or accomplish something by himself, and that power is not relational at all; it may involve other people if what he has power to do is a social or political action, but it need not.”³⁸ There are rare situations in which the “self” can initiate transformational change, that is, agents have power to free themselves from existing narratives and engage in proactively creating new narratives. For instance, an actor can simply start living a more sustainable life and create new sustainability narratives without any permission or interference from others. Research on social and environmental movements is often based on this perception of power.³⁹ Some scholars frame “green” businesses and corporate social responsibility in such a context of agents doing things differently and contributing to “utopian” futures.⁴⁰ Most recently, scholars have issued the power of individual citizens and consumers in environmental politics.⁴¹ This type of power derives from an individual change in thinking amongst consumers that aims to bring about structural transformations. For example, when Greenpeace confronted Shell with the Brent Spar campaign in a “David against Goliath” story in 1995, they challenged the narrative of safe ocean disposal by means of peaceful protest and spreading the narrative of an oil-independent energy supply based on renewables, such as solar and wind energy.⁴² Respective scholars are hence less interested in exploring the political confrontation (that is, the defeat of Goliath, or Shell) than in understanding the possibility of alternative ideas and values (that is, transforming Goliath societies and Shell’s growing investments and turning to renewables).⁴³

Again, however, the media selects and frames the content of movement campaigns. This means that activists themselves might perceive and frame problems differently than the media. If media narratives mask the underlying conditions of consumption and production – for example, the increasing demand for electricity and unequal distribution that underpin environmental degradation, poverty, inequality and disease – as it happens in everyday environmentalism, the narrative risks reconstituting those problems’ root causes.⁴⁴ While everyday environmentalism risks denying subject positions, we should, however, not completely neglect agency (“self”), that is, what activists and media intentionally communicate. There is a tension between acknowledging and overcoming structures, and their inherent subject positions, at the same time. While new media often foregrounds representations of the self that relate to utopian narratives, mainstream media often present Utopists as naïve and their narratives of an anticipated future as overly optimistic, as movements often neglect or dismiss structural constraints, including the limits of media communication, when claiming that change is possible.

In the following sections, we look at two differing but interrelated campaigns against the use of GMOs in the food and clothing sectors that challenge food and cotton production practices in India. While each campaign differs in thematic focus and appeals toward either a national or more global audience, many of the actors are present in both campaigns. As the literature identified that anti-GMO campaigns have a particular focus on India,⁴⁵ we started our empirical data collection by focusing on the country’s activists and the medial take-up of their campaigns. Our analysis aims for a better understanding of how apocalyptic and utopian narratives are deployed within the campaigns and distributed by digital media. Following the snowball principle, we analyzed blogs, websites, YouTube and Vimeo videos of the campaigns and supported that material with a scoping trip to India in 2011, where we had the chance to meet many activists in person. Methodologically, we use the theoretical terms developed in this previous section to code and interpret our empirical material. We pay particular attention to how these campaigns create different subject positions that constitute the identity of ethical consumers in everyday environmentalism.

“Food Colonialism” versus “Food Sovereignty”: The Narrative Power of anti-GM Food Campaigns

The anti-GM food movement associates GMOs with major threats of GM “monster plants,” “terminator seeds” and “food colonialism”…. Recently, GM foods have evoked resistance in Europe, and disputes on and campaigns against GMOs have been particularly visible in the Global South.⁴⁶ For instance, in India, GMOs are associated with “food colonialism”; that is, foreign governments and private companies seeking authority and control over Indian food supply.⁴⁷ Private biotech companies in particular, such as Monsanto or Syngenta, have been targeted by activists’ campaigns for irresponsible business practices.⁴⁸

In India, the controversy around Bt brinjal,⁴⁹ the first GM food to be introduced for commercial cultivation through a joint venture between the Indian biotech firm Mahyco and Monsanto, exposed the global controversy around the right handling of GMOs.⁵⁰ While proponents argued that Bt brinjal was safe for the environment and human consumption and economically viable, opposing movement campaigns questioned issues ranging from scientific soundness of health, environmental, and economic tests to labeling difficulties, existence of alternatives, and threat of foreign control over the Indian seed market. Despite biosafety and environmental clearance by national regulatory authorities, then-Minister of the Environment, Jairam Ramesh, decided to stop the release of GM plants in 2011 after a series of public consultations that revealed opposition from Indian state governments and civil society, a lack of scientific consensus and low public confidence in GM foods.⁵¹ Civil society organized within a “Coalition for GM-free India,” a loose network of Indian organizations and individuals opposed to GMOs that comprised international and national NGOs (such as Greenpeace, Navdanyana, Gene Campaign and Association for Indian Development), which mobilized people around the issue.

The campaign against the introduction of Bt brinjal is related to earlier debates around the introduction of GMOs in agriculture, such as in the case of Bt cotton in India, and it connects to global debates around GM food in general. While health aspects and environmental concerns are an important part of the debate, the injustices of the international patent system are a serious concern; hence, the anti-GMO movement often directly campaigns against the dominant actors within the GMO system: agrochemical MNCs, such as Monsanto and Bayer.⁵² The term “biopiracy” addresses these asymmetric power relations and has been part of social movement vocabulary for a long time. It describes the commercial exploitation and patenting of biological resources without adequate compensation for local communities.⁵³ The term was spread on a worldwide scale, especially by Vandana Shiva, an Indian activist-scholar, and represents an apocalyptic narrative that unites social movements around the world in their fight against GM crops. On her organization’s website, Shiva describes how MNCs, in particular Monsanto, are “pirating the collective innovation of farmers.”⁵⁴ Part of this story Shiva spreads via digital media claims that MNC engagement in developing countries has detrimental effects on the environment and farmers. Shiva and Navdanya, a civil society network of seed keepers and organic producers in India, have warned that farmland will be transformed into monocultures and destroy biodiversity, just as it happened during the Green Revolution.⁵⁵ The story that Shiva narrates is gloomy: “Monocultures. Deadness. Everyone depressed. Everyone on Prozac. More and more young people unemployed. We don’t want that world of death.”⁵⁶ This apocalyptic narrative links GMOs and industrial agriculture with the loss of biodiversity through the spread of monocultures and theft of property rights, as most explicitly exemplified in the term “terminator seeds.” In addition, the narrative of farmer suicides was mobilized to show the financial burden associated with seed monopolization.⁵⁷

The anti-GM food movement in India accomplished linking the apocalyptic images that the “biopiracy” narrative invoked with the country’s colonial past in the media. Bt brinjal was associated with narratives of external dependence and a new imperialism of the United States that sought to control the international agricultural market through MNCs. The Coalition for GM-free India, for instance, established a narrative suggesting that the introduction of GM food was connected with a major corporate take-over of the Indian food economy, and argued that “the hard-won independence led by Mahatma Gandhi cannot be lost now to agri-business MNCs.”⁵⁸ Politicians of some Indian states were ready to adopt this narrative. The minister of agriculture of Madhya Pradesh, for instance, referred to the fear of foreign dependence and compared Bt brinjal to “‘the latest version of East India Company-type colonization of the country’ that will destroy Indian farming.”⁵⁹ The movement against Bt brinjal firmly linked the introduction of GM foods with the narrative of food colonialism supposedly exercised by MNCs. But this apocalyptic narrative also created specific subject positions, in which those international biotech companies were represented as evil capitalist tools of the West, while Indian farmers and consumers were represented as oppressed victims of these MNCs. The clear ascription of winners and losers of the introduction of GM food is part and parcel of the apocalyptic narrative of food colonialism in this context.

Against the backdrop of this apocalyptic narrative, the anti-GM food movement also mobilized a utopian narrative of “food sovereignty.” Just like the narrative against MNCs, this narrative is embedded within India’s colonial past. But, instead of referring to the experience of British colonialism, campaigns refer to a favorable symbol of Indian independence, Mahatma Gandhi, to create a positive narrative of food sovereignty. This is based on Gandhian narratives of swaraj (self-rule) and swadeshi (of one’s own country), which have become strong discursive reference points in post-colonial Indian politics.⁶⁰ These main narratives connect nationalistic narratives of self-rule with a rationale for less dependency on other powers and helped to establish food sovereignty as a common vision for India.⁶¹ Campaigns against Bt brinjal distributed this message through media, clearly linking these themes through a slogan such as “Remember the Mahatma, Stop Bt Brinjal and Protect India’s Seed and Food Sovereignty,” which were used to protest against “losing out their ‘hard-won independence’ to private sector enterprises,”⁶² or the slogan “Bt Brinjal Quit India, Monsanto Quit India,” which refers to Gandhi’s famous call for independence from British colonial rule.⁶³ The positive reference to Gandhi and his vision of Indian independence and self-reliance mobilized people to a crucial extent and provoked consultations on India’s food independence.

At the same time, the positive Gandhian narrative creates very different subject positions. While MNCs (unsurprisingly) represent the same evil actor from the West, Indian farmers and consumers no longer take on the role of victimized subjects. Instead, Gandhi provides a positive narrative of empowerment and independence that Shiva revokes in one of her writings:

The seed has become the site and symbol of freedom in an age of manipulation and monopoly of its diversity. It plays the role of Gandhi’s spinning wheel in this period of recolonization through free trade. The charkha (spinning wheel) became an important symbol of freedom because it was small; it could come alive as a sign of resistance and creativity in the smallest of huts and poorest of families.⁶⁴

The charkha symbolized the technological alternative to industrial manufacturing that “created self-reliance instead of dependence, and generated livelihoods instead of destroying them.”⁶⁵ For Shiva, organic agriculture is such a way of empowering farmers by shifting from conventional to more sustainable farming practices. The utopian narrative of swaraj represents farmers’ freedom to grow, save and exchange seeds without the influence of corporations. It does not only help to achieve food sovereignty, but it also contrasts with the apocalyptic narrative of food colonialism, monocultures, increasing loss of biodiversity and disempowerment of farmers that is associated with GM food crops.⁶⁶ In this utopian narrative, organic agriculture as the charkha enables farmers to “get things done” independently of other actors. Consumers, on the other hand, are called upon to save seeds at home, to “get out of the supermarket” and grow their own food.⁶⁷ Indeed, these utopian narratives of empowered and independent farmers and consumers are increasingly taken up globally and distributed via digital media. In consequence, there is an increasing number of community-supported agriculture (CSA) projects in Western countries. In these projects, people do not identify as “consumers” and “producers” anymore, but only as “participants.”⁶⁸

While the narrative of food colonialism portrays the anti-GM food movement as a benevolent defender of farmers against MNCs, it tends to represent farmers (and consumers) as subjects that are manipulated and influenced by the GMO industry. In this regard, the apocalyptic narrative paralyzes people and thus hinders their agency. At the same time, the utopian narrative of food sovereignty tends to overemphasize Indian farmers’ as well as consumers’ capacity to free themselves from existing market structures. Not everybody has access to the land, time, and financial resources, capacities and skills necessary to save seeds and grow and prepare food for herself and her family. In particular, in the case of crop shortfall, for example, there will continue to be a need to go to “the supermarket.” Yet, such limits are not disseminated and linked to the narrative in the media discourse. The utopian vision of food sovereignty and independence related to Gandhian ideas only works against the threat of a colonization of the food system and the power MNCs have over local farmers. While the apocalyptic narrative provokes resistance, the utopian narrative of food sovereignty is supposed to mobilize people to engage for a vision that shifts agricultural practices toward more self-reliant farming and food practices. However, in order to activate action, both utopian and apocalyptic narratives necessarily reduce the complexity of what is at stake.

’Dirty Fashion’ versus “Ethical Fashion”: The Narrative Power of the anti-Bt Cotton Campaigns

Movements against GM foods also turn against Bt cotton, which is a GM cotton variety that is resistant to bollworm. The majority of Bt cotton is produced by Monsanto and Syngenta. Today, Bt cotton is estimated to be about seventy-five percent of the total share of cotton on a worldwide scale.⁶⁹ If farmers use Bt cotton, they have to pay above-average seed prices to agri-biotech companies. In particular, the Indian cotton boom depends on a single company – Monsanto – which has a monopoly over the technology in India.⁷⁰ The anti-Bt cotton movement campaigns accuse Monsanto being responsible for an increase of Indian cotton seed prices “by almost 80,000%”⁷¹ since the corporation introduced Bt cotton in the country in 2002. Shiva says on her website: “300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide, trapped in vicious cycles of debt and crop failures, 84% of these suicides are attributed directly to Monsanto’s Bt cotton.”⁷² While the link between GMOs and farmer suicides is debatable,⁷³ like in the narrative of food colonialism, the subject positions of an evil MNC and the suffering farmer victims are assigned. Against the backdrop of this apocalyptic narrative, Indian activists present themselves in their campaigns as defenders of marginalized cotton farmers by taking legal action against Monsanto and the Government of India, including the legal challenge of Monsanto’s ownership rights of Bt cotton.⁷⁴ However, these activists’ voices are hardly present in the global media discourse.

In contrast to the anti-GM food campaigns in India, the digital cotton campaigns, which receive attention on a global scale, are very much driven by Western organizations such as Oxfam, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), and the Soil Association.⁷⁵ These three international organizations, which are all headquartered in the United Kingdom, focus on communicating the environmental problems associated with cotton production. For instance, on its homepage, the Soil Association states: “Dirty fashion: The fashion industry is the world’s second most polluting industry after oil” and “The GM industry is built on empty promises, but very real (environmental) dangers.”⁷⁶ Links are only occasionally made with the apocalyptic narrative of food colonialism; for example, when farmer suicides are claimed to be a result of debt that is “at least in part”⁷⁷ related to the high prices that MNCs charge for agricultural input. Similarly, though Oxfam mentions that inequalities of global cotton trade are a result from former colonialism, this issue focuses on the fact that “rich-country cotton subsidies remain unabated, hurting poor cotton farmers [in the Global South].”⁷⁸ In this vein, Oxfam has spearheaded transnational cotton campaigns, especially via new media technologies, with its “Make Trade Fair” (established in 2002).⁷⁹ This campaign does not challenge the fact that Indian cotton continues to be exported to Europe and elsewhere; instead, it fuels the utopian narrative calling for free trade without distortion of government subsidy. The narrative proclaims that international cotton trade is necessary, just and suitable for poverty eradication. Hence, we find Bob’s argument confirmed that only part of the activists’ original discourse is transmitted by international civil society organizations via the global media.⁸⁰ A consequence of this partial communication, according to Sneyd, is that such cotton and textile campaigns “have secured the conformity of [Southern] officials to the status quo norms, rules and decision-making procedures of trade negotiations, and sought to […] depoliticize [Southern] approaches to trade and development debates.”⁸¹

People have internalized the utopian narrative of “fair trade” and “ethical fashion,” that is, fashion produced under stricter conditions than legally required, and potentially outbalancing trade distortion through subsidies and tariffs.⁸² The Soil Association joined an international working group to develop an “ethical fashion” label, the Global Organic Textile Standard, for which common license conditions were first published in 2009. The label guarantees GMO-free textiles, produced with cotton only from organic farmers.⁸³ Furthermore, the “ethical fashion” narrative enabled a broad cooperation of civil society with conventional business actors, in particular, in the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI).⁸⁴ BCI makes textile companies pay certification fees, which are used to train smallholder farmers in the Global South in environmentally friendly cultivation methods; however, certification does not exclude GM seeds. To the contrary, the initiative cooperates with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which holds shares in Monsanto and advocates for the introduction of GM crops, including Bt cotton, on a worldwide scale.⁸⁵

Although the “ethical fashion” narrative creates new subject positions of consumers who have the power to create more sustainable and just cotton supply chains, it leads consumers only to believe that they can “make trade fair.” They remain identified as “consumers,” rather than the “participants” in CSA food projects. This novel narrative masks and even reproduces structural asymmetries.

The increasing demand for certified cotton in recent years, which now makes up about twenty percent of global cotton production,⁸⁶ confirms the success of utopian ethical fashion narratives and its dissemination by international civil society organizations.⁸⁷ However, while the apocalyptic narrative gives movements an imperative to resist MNCs in support of Bt cotton, the utopian narrative of “ethical fashion” creates subjects that emphasize empowerment without directly acting against something or someone. One can do “good” without conceptualizing and confronting the ‘bad‘. The Make Trade Fair campaign and the narrative of “ethical fashion” suggest that trade liberalization can only serve cotton farmers if consumers have better knowledge.

However, again, the media neglect fundamental physical and economic constraints that hinder farmers’ and consumers’ empowerment in an “ethical fashion” utopia. First, the coexistence of Bt cotton and conventional or organic cotton is virtually impossible. Cotton harvests are easily contaminated through neighboring Bt cotton fields and outbreeds.⁸⁸ Second, there are economic constraints regarding what consumers are willing or able to pay for their “ethical” textiles. This is something essentially different if consumers identify as participants in, for example, CSA food projects. While the “ethical fashion” narrative was successfully established by the media and led to more consumers buying ethically labeled textiles (twenty percent), comparatively few consumers decided to buy more expensive GM-free organic textiles (three percent). India is producing the vast majority of organic cotton with a share of fifty-six percent of global production.⁸⁹ Further, Southern cotton farmers continue to depend on Western consumers, who are supposed to voluntarily pay “fair” prices, and on multinational retailers, to whom farmers must pass certification fees on to. It hence comes as no surprise that movements’ campaigns continue to use apocalyptic narratives of “colonialism” and/or “dirty fashion” to mobilize for more radical resistance that demands systemic changes.

Discussion and Outlook: Enabling Change in Everyday Environmentalism through Campaigning Utopian Narratives?

The anti-GM food and anti-Bt cotton movements used both apocalyptic and utopian narratives. In both cases, the utopian narratives emerged against the backdrop of the apocalyptic narrative. It would make no sense to claim “food sovereignty” without “food colonialism,” or “ethical fashion” without “dirty fashion.” Hence, the media’s dissemination of utopian narratives depends on the recipients’ awareness of apocalyptic narratives in order to unfold their full power through movements’ campaigns. This has implications for the subject positions created by the narratives. While the apocalyptic narratives of “food colonialism” imply clear counterparts, foreign governments and corporations, there is not necessarily a counterpart in the case of “dirty fashion.” To the contrary, all people tend to wear “dirty” clothes and are hence implicated in the reproduction of environmental and social problems in textile production. The different subject positions that were created in the different campaigns have consequences when it comes to the formation of an identity of ethical consumers.

While both types of campaigns have a similar outreach in terms of mediatization, “food colonialism” tends to be far more threatening compared to “dirty fashion”; therefore, the utopian narratives also vary in their ability to create radical consumer identities. The narrative of “food sovereignty” is more radical than the narrative of “ethical fashion.” “Food sovereignty” creates identities of conscious citizens who are self-determined farmers or participants in new forms of agricultural and food projects. “Ethical fashion,” on the other hand, creates identities of ethically minded consumers who pay more for their (certified) products, but there is no need to change overall structures of consumption and production. In particular, cotton farmers in the Global South remain dependent on Western consumers paying more for ethically labeled products. As the “dirty fashion” narrative is not directed against anyone in particular, and the “ethical fashion” narrative is more inclusive (especially with regard to conventional business), this less-radical presentation in the media gives the anti-Bt cotton campaigns less power to create subjects who care for GM-free and organic cotton products, compared to the success of the anti-GM food movement. In a country like Germany, less than 1% of food contains GMOs,⁹⁰ but seventy-five percent of global cotton products are estimated to be made from Bt cotton.⁹¹ Therefore, radical narratives can motivate more people with their campaigns. This difference in creating radical ethical consumer identities in everyday environmentalism may be one way to understand the varying political impact of these campaigns with regard to GMOs.

Both utopian and apocalyptic narratives are communicated in simplistic ways. Anti-GMO movements evoke strong and clearly contrasting pictures of apocalypse and utopia to motivate action. At the same time, some actors choose to work with, instead of against, MNCs that are not or hardly depicted as global evils in everyday environmentalism (in contrast to radical movement campaigns). In order for this story to function, ambiguities and contradictions, which include the impossibility of organic and conventional farming coexisting, higher consumer prices for better products or the need to consume to “do good,” must be ignored. The mediatization of the campaigns only allows for simple representations of the self without addressing these ambiguities and it is debatable whether the two utopian narratives actually depict a radical change that is normatively desirable. In times of increasing global challenges, nationalist movements or businesses use the opportunity to promote visions that seem to contradict objectives of creating more just and sustainable societies. Social movements are also not resistant to that: the very inclusive narrative of “ethical fashion” allowed for a cooptation of movements. Environmental organizations, such as PAN, which campaign for GMO-free agriculture, participate in BCI, which actually supports farmers using Bt cotton. This demonstrates that media campaigning utopian narratives does not necessarily imply a turn away from “business as usual” to find the most sustainable political solution, but rather may protect interests that are detrimental to social justice and environmental protection efforts.

Although utopian narratives about equality and social justice in the agricultural and apparel sectors have not lost their appeal, in the age of everyday environmentalism, they are often transmitted in a neoliberal context of consumer choice. Activists’ radical demands clash with the media’s selection of campaigns.⁹² Especially in the case of cotton, we see how companies took up movements’ visions about “fair trade.” However, in the case of food, the campaign’s reference to Ghandi demonstrates that history provides more than just one narrative; movements are able to choose amongst alternative values and norms to narrate motivating visions and create identities of ethically minded citizens who are apt for radical sustainability transformations through their decisions in their everyday life. The study of the construction of utopian and apocalyptic narratives in their campaigns can therefore give us important insights how narrative power consciously and unconsciously impacts what kind of change is possible and desirable in the everyday.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Lena Partzsch’s work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education (project no. 031B0235A).

Notes on contributors

Katharina Glaab

Katharina Glaab is associate professor of Global Change and International Relations at the Department of International Development and Environment Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. She received her PhD from the University of Muenster. Her fields of research are global environmental politics and International Relations theory.

Lena Partzsch

Lena Partzsch is professor of Environmental and Development Policy at the University of Freiburg. She holds a Diploma and PhD from the Freie Universitaet Berlin and received the venia legendi for political science from the University of Muenster. Her research interests lie in the fields of International Relations and sustainability governance.

Notes

¹ Michael Barnett, The International Humanitarian Order (London, UK: Routledge, 2010), p. 210.

² Bundesregierung, “Lebensmittel in Deutschland grundsätzlich gentechnikfrei,” Die Bundesregierung (December 15, 2017), available online at: https://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Artikel/2014/06/2013-06-12-lebensmittel-in-d-weitgehend-gentechnikfrei.html.

³ Steffi Ober, “Homepage,” NABU (December 15, 2017), available online at: www.nabu.de/natur-und-landschaft/landnutzung/landwirtschaft/gentechnik.

⁴ For example, Anja Nygren, “Governance and Images: Representations of Certified Southern Producers in High-Quality Design Markets,” Environmental Values 24:3 (2015), pp. 391–412.

⁵ Dominic Glover, “Exploring the Resilience of Bt Cotton’s ‘Pro-poor Success Story,’” Development and Change 41:6 (2010), pp. 955–81.

⁶ Thomas More, Utopia, George M. Logan and Robert M. Adams (eds) (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

⁷ Thomas Schölderle, Geschichte der Utopie (Cologne, DE: UTB, 2012).

⁸ Ralf Dahrendorf, Pfade aus Utopia: Arbeiten zur Theorie und Methode der Soziologie (München, DE: R. Piper, 1967).

⁹ Samuel J. Barkin, “Realist Constructivism,” International Studies Review 5:3 (2003), pp. 325–342.

¹⁰ Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization 52:4 (1998), pp. 887–917; Thomas Risse-Kappen, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink, The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Nicolas Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001).

¹¹ Barnett, International Humanitarian Order, p. 211.

¹² Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International Organization 46:2 (1992), pp. 391–425.

¹³ Patrick Hayden and Chamsy el-Ojeili, “Introduction: Reflections on the Demise and Renewal of Utopia in a Global Age,” in Patrick Hayden and Chamsy el-Ojeili (eds), Globalization and Utopia: Critical Essays (London, UK: Routledge, 2009), pp. 1–9.

¹⁴ Lilie Chouliaraki, “Self-mediation: New Media and Citizenship,” Critical Discourse Studies 7:4 (2010), pp. 227–232.

¹⁵ Clifford Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

¹⁶ Mette Fog Olwig and Lene Bull Christiansen, “Irony and Politically Incorrect Humanitarianism,” in Lisa A. Richey (ed.), Celebrity Humanitarianism and North-South Relations: Politics, Place and Power (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016), pp. 170–88; Ilan Kapoor, Celebrity Humanitarianism: The Ideology of Global Charity (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013).

¹⁷ Nygren, “Governance and Images.”

¹⁸ Ibid, 403.

¹⁹ Hayden and el-Ojeili, “Introduction,” pp. 6–7.

²⁰ Robin Globus Veldman, “Narrating the Environmental Apocalypse. How Imagining the End facilitates Moral Reasoning among Environmental Activists,” Ethics and the Environment 17:1 (2012), pp. 1–24.

²¹ Chris Methmann and Detlef Rothe, “Politics for the Day after Tomorrow: The Logic of Apocalypse in Global Climate Politics,” Security Dialogue 43:4 (2012), p. 324.

²² Erik Swyngedouw, “Apocalypse Forever? Post-political Populism and the Spectre of Climate Change,” Theory Culture Society 27:2–3 (2010), pp. 213–232.

²³ Ibid., 219.

²⁴ Methmann and Rothe, “Politics for the Day after Tomorrow.”

²⁵ John Dryzek, The Politics of the Earth. Environmental Discourses (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 16.

²⁶ See Charlotte Epstein, The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an Anti-whaling Discourse (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008).

²⁷ Barnett, The International Humanitarian Order, p. 210.

²⁸ Clive Barnett, Paul Cloke, Nick Clarke, and Alice Malpass, “Consuming Ethics: Articulating the Subjects and Spaces of Ethical Consumption,” Antipode 37:1 (2005), pp. 23–45.

²⁹ James G. Carrier, “Introduction,” in James G. Carrier and Peter G. Luetchford (eds), Ethical Consumption: Social Value and Economic Practice (New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2012), pp. 1–36.

³⁰ Wendt, “Anarchy is What States Make of It,” p. 418.

³¹ Colin Wight, “They Shoot Dead Horses Don’t They? Locating Agency in the Agent-Structure Problematique,” European Journal of International Relations 5:1 (1999), pp. 109–42.

³² Chouliaraki, “Self-mediation.”

³³ Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, “From Politics to Prophecy: Environmental Quiescence and the ‘Peak-oil’ Movement,” Environmental Politics 22:5 (2013), pp. 866–882.

³⁴ Veldman, “Narrating the Environmental Apocalypse.”

³⁵ Juha Vuori, “A Timely Prophet? The Doomsday Clock as a Visualization of Securitization Moves with a Global Referent Object,” Security Dialogue 41:3 (2010), pp. 255–277.

³⁶ Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World (New York, NY: The Breakthrough Institute, 2004), p. 30.

³⁷ Julia M. Wittmayer, Julia Backhaus, Flor Avelino, Bonno Pel, Tim Strasser and Iris Kunze, “Narratives of Change: How Social Innovation Initiatives Engage with their Transformative Ambitions,” TRANSIT Working Paper #4 (October 2015).

³⁸ Hanna F. Pitkin, Wittgenstein and Justice: On the Significance of Ludwig Wittgenstein for Social and Political Thought (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972).

³⁹ Lena Partzsch, “‘Power with’ and ‘Power to’ in Environmental Politics and the Transition to Sustainability,” Environmental Politics 26:2 (2017), pp. 193–211.

⁴⁰ Erik Assadourian, “Transforming Corporations,” in Worldwatch Institute (ed.), State of the World 2006: Special Focus: India and China (London, UK: Earthscan, 2006), pp. 171–236; Frances Westley, Michael Q. Patton, and Brenda Zimmerman, Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed (Toronto, CA: Vintage Canada, 2007).

⁴¹ Christer Berglunda and Simon Matti, “Citizen and Consumer: The Dual Role of Individuals in Environmental Policy,” Environmental Politics 15:4 (2006), pp. 550–71.

⁴² Roland Roth, Florian Semle and Bernhard Pötter (eds), Vom David zum Goliath: NGOs im Wandel (München, DE: Oekom, 2001); Grant Jordan, Shell, Greenpeace and the Brent Spar (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2001).

⁴³ Jordan, Shell, Greenpeace and the Brent Spar.

⁴⁴ Lisa A. Richey and Stefano Ponte, “Better (Red)™ than Dead? Celebrities, Consumption and International Aid,” Third World Quarterly 29:4 (2008), pp. 711–29.

⁴⁵ For instance, Ian Scoones, Science, Agriculture and the Politics of Policy: The Case of Biotechnology in India (New Delhi, IN: Orient Longman, 2006).

⁴⁶ Robert Falkner and Aarti Gupta, “The Limits of Regulatory Convergence: Globalization and GMO Politics in the South,” International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 9:2 (2009), pp. 113–133.

⁴⁷ Doris Fuchs and Katharina Glaab, “Material Power and Normative Conflict in Global and Local Agrifood Governance: the Lessons of ‘Golden Rice’ in India,” Food Policy 36:6 (2011), pp. 729–735.

⁴⁸ Monsanto is the world’s leading producer of GM seeds and has its origins in the United States. Syngenta, another multinational company (MNC) with its headquarter in Switzerland, is Monsanto’s closest rival. In 2015, Monsanto tried to acquire Syngenta, but failed. Instead, both GM seed producers are now bought up themselves. In 2016, Bayer, a German multinational chemical, pharmaceutical and life sciences company, announced its acquisition of Monsanto. In April 2017, the European Commission has approved the acquisition of Syngenta by ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned (agro-) chemical company. The approval is conditional on the divestiture of significant parts of ChemChina’s European pesticide and plant growth regulator business (The Guardian 2016).

⁴⁹ Bt refers to a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, which – in this case – is supposed to make the plant resistant to damages such as the fruit and shoot borer. Brinjal is the Hindi word for eggplant.

⁵⁰ A more recent example is the controversy around the introduction of GM mustard in 2018, which would then be India’s first GM food crop.

⁵¹ Jairam Ramesh, Decision on Commercialisation of Bt-Brinjal (New Delhi, IN: Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2010).

⁵² Marc Williams, “Feeding the World? Transnational Corporations and the Promotion of Genetically Modified Food,” In Jennifer Clapp and Doris Fuchs (eds), Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), pp. 155–86; Ronald J. Herring, “Why Did ’Operation Cremate Monsanto’ Fail? Science and Class in India’s Great Terminator-Technology Hoax,” Critical Asian Studies 38:4 (2006), pp. 467–93.

⁵³ Carl Death, “Disrupting Global Governance: Protest at Environmental Conferences from 1972 to 2012,” Global Governance 21:4 (2015), pp. 579–98.

⁵⁴ Navdanya, “Homepage,” (December 15, 2017), available online at: www.navdanya.org/campaigns/biopiracy.

⁵⁵ Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1999).

⁵⁶ Michael Specter, "Seeds of Doubt," New Yorker (August 25, 2014), available online at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/seeds-of-doubt.

⁵⁷ Gigesh Thomas and Johan De Tavernier, “Farmer-suicide in India: Debating the Role of Biotechnology,” Life Sciences, Society and Policy 13:8 (2017), pp. 1–21.

⁵⁸ Association for India’s Development, “Genetically Modified Foods – Stop Bt Brinjal,” (2012), available online at: http://aidindia.org/main/content/blogcategory/0/442/.

⁵⁹ Staff Reporter, "No to Bt Brinjal: Please," The Hindu (October 28, 2009), available online at: https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/lsquoNo-Bt-Brinjal-pleasersquo/article16503116.ece/amp/.

⁶⁰ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Anthony Parel,’ Hind Swaraj’ and Other Writings (Cambridge, UK; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997 [1909]).

⁶¹ Shaila Seshia and Ian Scoones, “Tracing Policy Connections: The Politics of Knowledge in the Green Revolution and Biotechnology Eras in India,” IDS Working Paper Biotechnology Policy Series 188 (2003), p. 4.

⁶² Association for India’s Development, “Genetically Modified Foods.”

⁶³ The slogan refers to the famous “Quit India” speech by Mahatma Ghandhi, which called for passive resistance against the British. (Video material of the Bt brinjal public consultation in Andrah Pradesh province).

⁶⁴ Shiva, Biopiracy, p. 126.

⁶⁵ Vandana Shiva, The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology, and Politics (London, UK: Zed Books, 1991), p. 236.

⁶⁶ Shiva, The Violence of the Green Revolution; see also Whitney Sanford “Gandhi’s Agrarian Legacy: Practicing Food, Justice, and Sustainability in India,” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 7:1 (2013), pp. 65–87.

⁶⁷ The Growing Club, “Saving Seeds at Home with Vandana Shiva,” Youtube (December 15, 2015), available online at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xar4vixyzUs&t=208s.

⁶⁸ Birgit Peuker, “Community Supported Agriculture – Macht in und durch die Aushandlung alternativer Landwirtschaft,” In Lena Partzsch and Sabine Weiland (eds), Macht und Wandel in der Umweltpolitik: Sonderband der Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft (Baden-Baden, DE: Nomos, 2015), pp. 137–60.

⁶⁹ Nabu, “Homepage,” (December 15, 2017), available online at: www.nabu.de/natur-und-landschaft/landnutzung/landwirtschaft/gentechnik.

⁷⁰ The Guardian Editorial, “The Guardian View on GM Cotton: Handle With Care,” (December 15, 2017), available online at: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/04/the-guardian-view-on-gm-cotton-handle-with-care.

⁷¹ See Vandana Shiva, “Monsanto Versus Indian Farmers,” (December 15, 2017).

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ Thomas and De Tavernier, “Farmer-suicide in India”; Natasha Gilbert, “Case Studies: A Hard Look at GM Crops,” Nature 497 (2013), pp. 24–26.

⁷⁴ The Guardian, “The Guardian View on GM Cotton.”

⁷⁵ Adam Sneyd, Governing Cotton: Globalization and Poverty in Africa (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011).

⁷⁶ Soil Association, “Homepage,” (28 June 2017), availabe online at: www.soilassociation.org/our-campaigns/stop-genetic-modification/.

⁷⁷ PAN UK, “Homepage: Pesticides Action Network,” Pesticide-Free Cotton in Ethiopia (October 15, 2017), available online at: www.pan-uk.org/pesticide-free-cotton/www.pan-uk.org/cotton/.

⁷⁸ OXFAM Briefing Paper, "Pricing Farmers Out of Cotton: The Costs of World Bank Reforms in Mali," OXFAM (March, 2007), available online at: https://www.oxfamamerica.org/static/media/files/pricing-farmers-out-of-cotton.pdf.

⁷⁹ Adam Sneyd, “When Governance gets Going: Certifying ‘Better Cotton’ and ‘Better Sugarcane,’” Development and Change 45:2 (2014), pp. 109–110. See also Lisa A. Richey and Stefano Ponte, “Better (Red)™ than Dead?”

⁸⁰ Bob, Marketing of Rebellion.

⁸¹ Adam Sneyd, Governing Cotton.

⁸² Ibid., 111–2.

⁸³ GOTS, “Homepage: Global Organic Textile Standard,” (May 15, 2017), available online at: www.global-standard.org.

⁸⁴ Sneyd, “When Governance gets Going.”

⁸⁵ John Vidal, “Why is the Gates Foundation Investing in GM Giant Monsanto?” The Guardian (May 10, 2010), available online at: www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/29/gates-foundation-gm-monsanto.

⁸⁶ BCI. “Homepage: Better Cotton Initiative,” (May 10, 2017), available online at: http://bettercotton.org/.

⁸⁷ Ibid.

⁸⁸ Steffi Ober, “Cotton Made in Africa,” Gen-ethisches Netzwerk (August 1, 2008), available online at: www.gen-ethisches-netzwerk.de/gid/191/ober/cotton-made-africa.

⁸⁹ Organic Trade Association, “Homepage,” (December 15, 2017), available online at: https://ota.com/sites/default/files/indexed_files/Organic-Cotton-Facts.pdf.

⁹⁰ Bundesregierung, “Lebensmittel in Deutschland Grundsätzlich Gentechnikfrei,” (December 15, 2017), available online at: https://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Artikel/2014/06/2013-06-12-lebensmittel-in-d-weitgehend-gentechnikfrei.html.

⁹¹ Nabu, “Homepage.”

⁹² Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion.