Biotech Workshop

Among the most contentious strands of knowledge in the contemporary world is that surrounding transgenic organisms: "GMOs" in popular parlance. These products of genetic engineering have been presented in global politics as promising a significant improvement in the human condition or threatening its extinction. This workshop will look specifically at contestation of authoritative claims in the global debate: bioproperty, biosafety, biopolitics. How have social movements deployed authoritative knowledge to back their positions and legitimate their standing? How is science interjected into the contention; what difference does science make? What has been the basis of operative authority? How has framing of genetic engineering and its products affected regulatory science and national politics in different world regions? How does the GMO debate fit into other strands of the international movement confronting globalization? The point of the workshop is to understand the strands of contention empirically, not to itself generate contention.

Participants

Richard Bownas, Government, Cornell University
Sarah Nell Davidson, Plant Biology, Cornell University
Ron Herring, Government, Cornell University
Milind Kandlikar, Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia
William Munro, Political Science, Illinois Wesleyan University
Robert Paarlberg, Political Science, Wellesley College
Kyoko Sato, ISS, Cornell University
Rachel Schurman, Sociology, University of Minnesota
Sivramiah [Shanthu] Shantaram, President, Biologistics International
Janice Thies, Crop & Soil Sciences, Cornell University

Ron Herring, Department of Government
Janice Thies, Department of Crop & Soil Sciences
Sarah Soule, Department of Sociology
Anneliese Truame & Judi Eastburn, ISS Administrative Staff

Registration Fee: There is no registration fee. If you will be joining us for lunch, please RSVP to socialsciences@cornell.edu. The panels are free and no RSVP is necessary.

Workshop location: Room 229 ILR Conference Center. This building is located on Garden Avenue in the center of the Cornell campus, a block from the Statler Hotel. See this ISS map to locate the building & ask at the front desk for directions to the Room 229.

Parking: If you are a visiting speaker, please charge your parking to your hotel room. Otherwise, you will need to purchase a visiting parking permit at a campus information booth and ask directions of to the guest parking closest to the ILR Conference Center.

Travel: Visiting Ithaca information & Maps

Lodging: Statler Hotel, 130 Statler Dr., Ithaca, NY, 14583 (607-257-2500)
See directions to the hotel.