Boundaries, territory and public controversy: the GM debate re-materialised

Mahony, Martin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6377-413X and Pallett, Helen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5014-6356 (2013) Boundaries, territory and public controversy: the GM debate re-materialised. Area, 45 (2). 249–251. ISSN 0004-0894

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Abstract

In the UK, public debate about the science and applications of plant genetic modification (GM) recently re-surfaced in a conflict between researchers and protesters over a field of experimental wheat crop. Protesters threatened to destroy the crop in a mass action, while researchers and pro-GM campaigners rallied to the defence of this corner of the countryside in a bid to ‘defend science’ itself.1 Yet on the day of the proposed action the protesters were kept at a distance from the heavily policed field. In this short essay we consider the spatiality of this debate – its boundaries, territories, transgressions – and explore the significance of this particular controversy for the wider public debate and for geographers' engagement with knowledge controversies.

Item Type: Article
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Faculty of Science
UEA Research Groups: University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Science, Society and Sustainability
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 19 Nov 2015 08:24
Last Modified: 20 Oct 2023 01:01
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/55466
DOI: 10.1111/area.12014

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