Social Movements and Networks of Experts in Argentina?s pesticide conflict.

ARANCIBIA, FLORENCIA; SCOTT FRICKEL

Realizado virtualmente

Workshop; Agrifood, Technosciences, Politics since the Industrial Revolution.; 2021

University of Athens, Greece

We analyzed the mobilization of experts into Argentina?s pesticide conflict over fourteen years (2001-2015). Argentina was a pioneer in adopting pesticide-resistant genetically modified soy in 1996 and is today the third largest world producer. As pesticide use has grown exponentially, four dynamics unfolded simultaneously: 1- the rise of a social movement that associated pesticides with severe diseases and fought to restrict their use; 2- the involvement of health experts, scientist, and lawyers in the campaign and the foundation of different networks of mobilized experts; 3- the development of a field of knowledge on the effects of pesticides in the country; 4- some changes in local regulatory politics. We learned the critical importance of expert activism and knowledge production in explaining the local positive outcomes achieved by the movement. We mark this change historically. When the conflict began, only a few experts were involved with affected communities or actively assessing the environmental health effects of pesticides. By 2015, more than 50 experts integrated different networks connected to the movement and 1,068 studies on this topic have been published by Argentinian researchers. These networks changed over time, were highly dynamic, included heterogeneous expert profiles, and had both political and cognitive impacts.