Hype and Hope: A past and future perspective on new technologies for development
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Hype and Hope: A past and future perspective on new technologies for development
PAT MOONEY
ABSTRACT Pat Mooney argues that where science and technology should have expanded to serve the interests of everyone, our accumulated expertise was distorted into the service of a few. He argues that we need to confront today’s power elites and the immediate causes of injustice and challenge the technology waves that are manipulated to protect the oligopolistic interests of the rich. He asks that we smooth out the waves into a rising tide of human knowledge that benefits us all. KEYWORDS liberation technology; biodiversity; nano-scale technologies; food security; obesity
Liberation technology In March 2006, Leonardo Boff stood surrounded by hundreds of admirers under a vast tent, his voice barely audible above the din of a tropical downpour. Boff was on the periphery of the UN’s Biodiversity Convention ^ a 188-country conference taking place in Curitiba, Brazil. But, as always, as one of the prime movers behind Liberation Theology, Boff was at the centre of social change. Thirty years ago, much of the talk in civil society centred around Boff’s ‘Liberation Theology’ ^ a concept born in the social ferment of Latin America that rose beyond its Christian origins into a dialogue and struggle for social justice. Now, 30 years ^ one human generation ^ later, our governments all but ignore political solutions to social problems and even many in civil society have abandoned ‘LiberationTheology’ for ‘LiberationTechnology’ ^ the naive hope that new technologies will somehow trickle down to benefit the marginalized and rescue the environment. Leonardo Boff’s T-shirt said it all,‘Suicide Seeds are Homicide Seeds’and ‘Terminate Terminator.’ Thirty years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand could advocate that the 12,000-year-old practice of farmers saving seeds and plant breeding should come to an end and that food security should rely upon genetically engineered seed sterility.Yet, the Biodiversity Convention, next door to Boff’s tent, was debating exactly this technological-fix. The whole transition from Liberation Theology to Liberation Technology was perfectly captured by the events of March 2006. At the beginning of that month, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) convened the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in the homeland of the World Social Forum ^ Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil. The conference was the belated followthrough to a 1979 battle held in Rome that drew enormous political attention and Development (2006) 49(4), 16–22. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100305
Mooney: Past and Future Perspectives on New Technologies contentious debate as governments and farmers wrestled with the thorny issues of landed feudal elites, agribusiness, and integrated rural development. Although the 2006 meeting was a high priority for farmers’ organizations like La Via Campesina (and, especially, for MST ^ the 440,000 family-stro
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