Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: This paper generates a heuristic understanding of the stabilization dynamic of genetically modified plants. This heuristic, the paper argues, can provide a fruitful platform for studying the political dimensions embedded in GM plants. Focusing on stabilization is important, because outside laboratories a plant can have an intermediating role only as a cultivar; as something which has integrated into biological processes and human practices. The actual stabilizing entity is not just an object, but a dynamic analogous to what is called a developmental system. The empowering or suppressing consequences of GM plants depend significantly on the qualities of this spatio-temporal order stabilizing; on the “possibility space” it opens up. Moreover, stabilization connects and makes things possible, but it does not do so automatically, predictably – or for everyone. Centralized control may support stability, but it may also increase vulnerability by reducing local possibility space.
Source: New Genetics and Society
Author: Helena Valve
Institution: Finnish Environment Institute
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: Tampereen Yliopisto
OpenAlex ID: W2004062916