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A social study of the technologies composing the green revolution

Jan Cherlet (UGent)
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Abstract
Strictly speaking, the term ‘Green Revolution’ is used to indicate the introduction of improved crop seeds into the agricultural systems of Less Developed Countries (ldcs), starting after wwii and still going on today, but with its major breakthrough during the sixties. It was believed that modern science and technologies —improved crop seeds in particular— would be able to eradicate famine. In this article the metaphor of script, taken from Madeleine Akrich and Bruno Latour, is used to analyse the relation between designers (plant researchers) and users (ldc-farmers) in the Green Revolution. First, it is shown that the new Green Revolution seeds contained a script that drastically reconfigured the farmers’ relation with each other, with their seeds, with their government and with the West. Next, the author analyses how the script was embedded into the seeds. Finally, the ideologies that underpinned the script are briefly discussed.
Keywords
political ecology, STS, development, green revolution

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MLA
Cherlet, Jan. “A Social Study of the Technologies Composing the Green Revolution.” Scorci Di Storia Della Scienza : Contributi al Seminario Congiunto Dei Dottorati, edited by Claudio Pogliano and Martin Frank, Plus, 2010, pp. 1–17.
APA
Cherlet, J. (2010). A social study of the technologies composing the green revolution. In C. Pogliano & M. Frank (Eds.), Scorci di storia della scienza : Contributi al Seminario congiunto dei dottorati (pp. 1–17). Pisa: Plus.
Chicago author-date
Cherlet, Jan. 2010. “A Social Study of the Technologies Composing the Green Revolution.” In Scorci Di Storia Della Scienza : Contributi al Seminario Congiunto Dei Dottorati, edited by Claudio Pogliano and Martin Frank, 1–17. Pisa: Plus.
Chicago author-date (all authors)
Cherlet, Jan. 2010. “A Social Study of the Technologies Composing the Green Revolution.” In Scorci Di Storia Della Scienza : Contributi al Seminario Congiunto Dei Dottorati, ed by. Claudio Pogliano and Martin Frank, 1–17. Pisa: Plus.
Vancouver
1.
Cherlet J. A social study of the technologies composing the green revolution. In: Pogliano C, Frank M, editors. Scorci di storia della scienza : Contributi al Seminario congiunto dei dottorati. Pisa: Plus; 2010. p. 1–17.
IEEE
[1]
J. Cherlet, “A social study of the technologies composing the green revolution,” in Scorci di storia della scienza : Contributi al Seminario congiunto dei dottorati, Bari, Italy, 2010, pp. 1–17.
@inproceedings{1045152,
  abstract     = {{Strictly speaking, the term ‘Green Revolution’ is used to indicate the introduction of improved crop seeds into the agricultural systems of Less Developed Countries (ldcs), starting after wwii and still going on today, but with its major breakthrough during the sixties. It was believed that modern science and technologies —improved crop seeds in particular— would be able to eradicate famine. In this article the metaphor of script, taken from Madeleine Akrich and Bruno Latour, is used to analyse the relation between designers (plant researchers) and users (ldc-farmers) in the Green Revolution. First, it is shown that the new Green Revolution seeds contained a script that drastically reconfigured the farmers’ relation with each other, with their seeds, with their government and with the West. Next, the author analyses how the script was embedded into the seeds. Finally, the ideologies that underpinned the script are briefly discussed.}},
  author       = {{Cherlet, Jan}},
  booktitle    = {{Scorci di storia della scienza : Contributi al Seminario congiunto dei dottorati}},
  editor       = {{Pogliano, Claudio and Frank, Martin}},
  keywords     = {{political ecology,STS,development,green revolution}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Bari, Italy}},
  pages        = {{1--17}},
  publisher    = {{Plus}},
  title        = {{A social study of the technologies composing the green revolution}},
  year         = {{2010}},
}