Resistance is fertile: Canadian struggles on the BioCommons

Journal or Publishing Institution: University of British Columbia Press

Study: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=289TCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Resistance+is+fertile:+Canadian+biotechnology+policy+and+struggles+on+the+biocommons.&ots=oUM71sQ4D8&sig=kDIcPpJlT_16LuFzrFSdpkwTpww#v=onepage&q=Resistance%20is%20fertile%3A%20Canadian%20biotechnology%20policy%20and%20struggles%20on%20the%20biocommons.&f=false

Author(s): Peekhaus, W.

Article Type: Book

Record ID: 1852

Abstract: Chapter 1 is dedicated to outlining federal government policies and other pronouncements that serve to harness the vitality of the biotechnology sector as a motor for scientific innovation and economic growth. In addition to articulating the major elements of the CBS, I will introduce the players mobilizing against various aspects of agricultural biotechnology in Canada. Chapter 2 contemplates the capitalist appropriation of seeds and agriculture. This chapter also examines some of the resistance being organized a particularly insidious example of corporate control of seeds – Terminator technology. This chapter also will begin to outline the theoretical constructs highlighted earlier that I propose can most usefully help assess the empirical findings with respect to the corporate capture of agricultural biotechnology. In part, the Terminator discussion provides a segue into Chapter 3, which rehearses the major past and present battles fought against specific genetically engineered technologies. Here, in the context of resistance, an elaboration of the concept of the “commons” will complete our theoretical framework. Chapter 4 investigates and elaborates the ways through which the intellectual property regime might be conceived of as a contemporary form of primitive accumulation that facilitates the enclosure of biological information and resources. In addition to presenting three of the major judicial cases waged to date in Canadian courts over genetically engineering organisms, this chapter will offer findings that demonstrate ways in which contemporary patent practices in regard to biotechnology actually offend against many traditional justifications invoked in support of the intellectual property system. Chapter 5 analyzes that biotechnology regulatory regime as a mechanism that facilitates the enclosure of this science and its attendant technological applications. Deaf to pleas by both civil society and some scientific actors to expand the terms of reference of our current system of regulation, Canadian policy-makers remain steadfastly committed to an increasingly deficient linear model of scientific assessment that stubbornly refuses to admit broader social and political economic concerns into its deliberations. Chapter 6 describes some of the strategies and tactics employed by government and business to construct a deliberately circumscribed discourse around biotechnology, in what can be understood as a purposive enclosure of the knowledge commons. The concluding chapter offers an overview of the major empirical findings that emerge from this research project.

Keywords: Agricultural Sector, Biotechnology, Government Policy, Knowledge, Regulations, Resistance to Change, Seed Industry, Seeds; Rules, Canada

Citation: Peekhaus, W., 2013. Resistance is fertile: Canadian struggles on the BioCommons. University of British Columbia Press.