Social Movements and Techno-Democracy: Reclaiming the Genetic Commons.

This paper looks at responses by Mexican social movements to the introduction and use of genetic engineering (GE) in agriculture and food production. A number of prospective studies had highlighted the potential contribution of new agricultural biotechnologies to sustainable development. But following the traditional top down and technocratic approach to development, the alleged subjects of sustainable development had never been consulted on the desirability of such technology. Now that genetic engineering is being pushed onto the population of a number of countries around the world, some social movements are voicing their qualms about the sustainable development claims of genetic engineering in agriculture. This essay places these developments in the context of the broader struggles of the Mexican peasant and indigenous social movements, mainly in relation to their emergence from the authoritarian corporatist structure of the developmentalist years, and to their core political claims to autonomy and self management. What comes out of this analysis is the conclusion that these autonomist social movements are important actors that have to be taken into account when dealing with the introduction of a new technology such as genetic engineering, especially if the latter has to make any contribution to the process of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]