Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on December 6, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis argues from a contrarian point of departure that the successes of GMO agriculture have thus far been limited or underwhelming. It thus asks what accounts for the limitedness of the GMO food economy. From this overarching question, the research is divided into three further questions that consider the roles of law, the structural requirements of the capitalist system, and the use of discourses of nature amongst activists respectively as factors influencing the underdevelopment of GMO agriculture. These questions form the basis for three chapters that comprise the thesis. Chapter one draws on the work of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi in evaluating the consequences of legal regimes that regulate GMOs. Against the tide of neoliberalism, I discuss how a binding, precautionary agreement over international trade in GMOs emerged through the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. I argue that this Protocol is an example of what Polanyi termed the “self-protection of society,” the second phase of his double movement. Chapter two uses Marxist theories of agrarian capitalism to understand both the early successes and later setbacks of GMOs as a capital accumulation strategy. I argue that the successes and failures of GMO agriculture are partly circumscribed by the structural requirements of the capitalist system, as well as by the materiality of GMO crops themselves. The chapter builds on the work of Gabriela Pechlaner and David Goodman to show how processes of appropriationism, expropriationism and the logic of capital more generally can explain not only why some innovations have succeeded but also why so many others have been unsuccessful. Innovations that are geared at consumers rather than farmers have largely failed due to their status as value-added products (whose value is subjective and market-driven) rather than capital goods. Chapter three considers the role played by nature narratives in structuring the cultural politics of GMO agriculture. It argues that natural purity discourses have been central to the success of GMO activism as they have mobilized widely resonant nature-culture dualisms that separate the natural world from the human world. However, though strategically effective, these discourses hold dubious political implications, as they entrench or naturalize unequal power relations in the social world and deflect attention away from the problematic political economic consequences of GMOs under neoliberalism. The chapter argues that activist campaigns that directly target the political economic, neocolonial, and class implications of GMOs within the context of neoliberalism have also had successes without resorting to appeals to the purity of nature, an approach that I argue ought to frame opposition struggles against GMOs going forward. The thesis uses a mixed methods approach that includes document analysis, historical analysis, discourse analysis and literature review. It incorporates a wide lens approach, drawing on a range of case studies from multiple scales to animate the conceptual arguments being analyzed. By problematizing how GMO agriculture has evolved as a capital accumulation strategy for large transnational corporations, this thesis seeks to critically evaluate the practical social justice implications of anti-GMO resistance efforts for those opposed to neoliberal globalization. / Graduate / 0366 / 0615 / mylesc@uvic.ca

O que Pandora e sua caixa pode nos revelar sobre a política educacional brasileira? O tema da centralidade da educação básica e sua incorporação como direito social transpassa toda esta tese com um enfoque teórico que se propõe a desvelar a realidade a partir de suas contradições e relações entre singularidade, particularidade e universalidade. A análise se propôs a entender o seu desenvolvimento histórico a partir de sua gênese, captando categorias mediadoras para apreender a totalidade. Concentramos nossa análise nas políticas governamentais para a Educação Básica no Brasil porque diante da complexidade e da desigualdade do sistema educacional brasileiro qualquer estudo abarca um conjunto de escolhas que estão conectadas com a nossa trajetória. Sendo assim, as relações de força organizam e estruturam as políticas educacionais brasileiras, com o objetivo de criar e/ou fortalecer uma sociabilidade, de acordo com a conjuntura e pautada nos interesses dos governos. Nossa análise terá como referencial teórico a perspectiva gramsciana da centralidade da política. A política como aporte teórico está relacionada à ideia de entendimento do programa de ação do Estado Brasileiro no seu sistema educacional. O nosso intuito ao recorrer a Antonio Gramsci está em absorver de sua análise a forma de problematização que o constitui como um revitalizador, e na maioria dos casos ampliador, dos conceitos marxianos, possibilitando assim novas reflexões do mundo vivido e das conjunturas contemporâneas. / What can Pandora and her Box reveal us about the Brazilian educational politics? The centrality of the basics education and her incorporation as an social right passes over all the thesis with an theoretical approach that purposes to unveil the reality starting from the contradictions and relations between singularity, particularity and universality. The analysis purposes to understand his historical development from her genesis, collecting mediator categories to apprehend the totality. Concentrating the analysis on the governmental politics to Basic Education in Brazil because facing the complexity and the inequality of the Brazilian educational system, any studies span a set of choices connected with our trajectory. The relations of force organize and structure the Brazilian educational politics, trying to create and/or establish a sociability, according to the conjuncture aligned with the governs interests. Our analysis will have as a theoretical referencial the gramscian perspective of the centrality of politics. The politics as an theoretical place is related to the idea of understanding of the program of action from Brazil in his educational system. Our intention to use Antonio Gramsci is to absorb from his analysis the way to render problematic what makes him a revitalizer, and, in most cases, amplifier, of Marxian concepts, granting new reflexions of the world and contemporary conjunctures.

O que Pandora e sua caixa pode nos revelar sobre a política educacional brasileira? O tema da centralidade da educação básica e sua incorporação como direito social transpassa toda esta tese com um enfoque teórico que se propõe a desvelar a realidade a partir de suas contradições e relações entre singularidade, particularidade e universalidade. A análise se propôs a entender o seu desenvolvimento histórico a partir de sua gênese, captando categorias mediadoras para apreender a totalidade. Concentramos nossa análise nas políticas governamentais para a Educação Básica no Brasil porque diante da complexidade e da desigualdade do sistema educacional brasileiro qualquer estudo abarca um conjunto de escolhas que estão conectadas com a nossa trajetória. Sendo assim, as relações de força organizam e estruturam as políticas educacionais brasileiras, com o objetivo de criar e/ou fortalecer uma sociabilidade, de acordo com a conjuntura e pautada nos interesses dos governos. Nossa análise terá como referencial teórico a perspectiva gramsciana da centralidade da política. A política como aporte teórico está relacionada à ideia de entendimento do programa de ação do Estado Brasileiro no seu sistema educacional. O nosso intuito ao recorrer a Antonio Gramsci está em absorver de sua análise a forma de problematização que o constitui como um revitalizador, e na maioria dos casos ampliador, dos conceitos marxianos, possibilitando assim novas reflexões do mundo vivido e das conjunturas contemporâneas. / What can Pandora and her Box reveal us about the Brazilian educational politics? The centrality of the basics education and her incorporation as an social right passes over all the thesis with an theoretical approach that purposes to unveil the reality starting from the contradictions and relations between singularity, particularity and universality. The analysis purposes to understand his historical development from her genesis, collecting mediator categories to apprehend the totality. Concentrating the analysis on the governmental politics to Basic Education in Brazil because facing the complexity and the inequality of the Brazilian educational system, any studies span a set of choices connected with our trajectory. The relations of force organize and structure the Brazilian educational politics, trying to create and/or establish a sociability, according to the conjuncture aligned with the governs interests. Our analysis will have as a theoretical referencial the gramscian perspective of the centrality of politics. The politics as an theoretical place is related to the idea of understanding of the program of action from Brazil in his educational system. Our intention to use Antonio Gramsci is to absorb from his analysis the way to render problematic what makes him a revitalizer, and, in most cases, amplifier, of Marxian concepts, granting new reflexions of the world and contemporary conjunctures.