Resistance Is Fertile ─ Canadian Struggles on the Biocommons

For decades, government, industry, and the mainstream media have
extolled the virtues of biotechnology. Their dominant message -- that
biotechnology can improve everything from our health and diet to our
environment and economy -- is unmistakably celebratory. We hear about
biotechnology's power to reverse environmental degradation, help
medical researchers identify disease genes, and increase industrial
efficiency, output, and jobs. Government and industry rarely tell us
about its negative side effects. Not only are genetically engineered
crops still failing to deliver consistently higher yields, but there is
also mounting evidence that genetically engineered organisms come with
a host of safety and environmental risks.

Focusing on agriculture, Resistance Is Fertile challenges the
dominant rhetoric surrounding biotechnology by offering a critical
analysis of the role of capital and the state in the development of
this technoscience. In particular, Wilhelm Peekhaus analyzes the major
issues around which opponents of agricultural biotechnology in Canada
are mobilizing resistance -- namely, the enclosure of the biological
commons and the knowledge commons, which together form the BioCommons.
What emerges is an empirically and theoretically informed analysis of
topics such as Canada's regulatory regime, the corporate control
of seeds, the intellectual property system, and attempts to construct
and control public discussions about agricultural
biotechnology.

Wilhelm Peekhaus is an assistant professor at the
School of Information Studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Wilhelm Peekhaus is an assistant professor at theSchool of Information Studies at the University ofWisconsin-Milwaukee.