CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Fitzgerald, Rose V. C. |
|---|---|
| Title | The Future of Seeds: Subjectivities of seeds, seed practices, and seed (re)production in Colombia |
| Summary | The global seed and agricultural systems are inseparable from the capitalist economic system, which exploits environmental resources and human labour to increase productivity. Within the agricultural system, controlling seeds is a highly contested topic. In the highly biodiverse geographical context of Colombia, seed struggles are inseparable from the histories of violence and conflict that have fragmented rural landscapes and displaced marginalised populations. Drawing on the perspectives of 32 practitioners across formal and informal seed system sectors in Bogotá and Cali, I analyse the subjectivities of seeds and sustainability. This thesis uses a Science and Technology framework to show how seeds and peoples are racialised, constructing boundaries that relegate traditional seeds, knowledge, and users, as inferior to genetically pure seeds, users, and scientific knowledge. This research explores the de-territorialisation of seeds in modern breeding and germplasm banks as seeds are disembedded from growing contexts and growers. These seed practices reproduce a dominant sociotechnical imaginary, in which scientists are attempting to solve climate change and global hunger with technoscientific seeds. On the margins of the industrial agricultural system are local small-scale actors that are re-territorialising land and seeds. Using, saving, and exchanging traditional seeds in communities reproduces an alternative imagining of sustainability. Local resistance against hegemonic capitalism and seed enclosure through advocating for seed sovereignty maintains the alternative imagining. Future seed system sustainability needs to address the histories of oppression that condition and constrain it, to enable a more equitable and resilient future food system for all. |
| Supervisor | Aistara, Guntra |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/fitzgerald_rose.pdf |
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