Professor Michael Elmes was a 2005 Fulbright US Senior
Scholar at Victoria University of Wellington, where he researched constructions
of nature in the narratives of biotechnology stakeholders in New Zealand.
Currently involved in establishing an ongoing exchange programme for students
of Worcester Polytechnic Institute to visit New Zealand, Michael takes
time to reflect on his exchange research.
Michael Elmes
In January of 2005 I had the opportunity to come to New Zealand for six
months and investigate public perceptions and attitudes toward genetic
engineering. Coming from the United States where genetic engineering was
common and genetically-engineered products were readily available and
consumed with little in the way of public debate, it was interesting to
witness the passion with which various stakeholders argued about the technology.
I met environmentalists who opposed the technology vehemently, arguing
that it risked destroying New Zealand’s unique flora and fauna and
contaminating important genetic legacies. I met government officials who
saw the potential economic advantages of genetic engineering for a New
Zealand economy based on high value-added products, yet who understood
the thorny social and ethical aspects of the issue as well. And I met
plant scientists and farm support organizations who contended that genetic
engineering was no different from other hybridization techniques (such
as the traditional use of chemical agents), who were quite confident in
the farming community’s ability to manage the design, development,
and containment of transgenic technologies, and who contended that more
natural or organic forms of farming were often as toxic as more traditional,
industrial farming methods.
The range in points of view and perspectives on this contentious issue
was not surprising to me; what did surprise me, however, was how some
of the small farmers that I interviewed seemed to take a position that
straddled the GE debate. On one hand, they wanted to have access to technologies
that in the future might enable them to sell products in a competitive
global economy from which they were not protected (by, for example, government
farm supports); on the other hand, they expressed the desire to be good
stewards of their land and to avoid introducing technologies or farming
practices that could have had negative long-term consequences. It was
in talking to these farmers that I began to think about the Royal Commission’s
rationale of “preserving opportunities” in permitting the development
of transgenic technology in New Zealand in spite of over 10,000 submissions
most of which opposed the technology. It led me to think about the power
of cultural myths that quietly and invisibly guide decision-making on
many of the most controversial issues in a society.
When I say cultural myths I am talking about belief systems rooted in
historical events that guide how people in a given group or society make
sense of complex phenomena and make decisions with regard to those phenomena.
Often cultural myths are founded on beliefs that people take for granted
and seem commonsensical yet which have served the interests of powerful
stakeholders. In New Zealand, for example, I found some evidence for a
“purity myth”, often characterized in New Zealand as “clean
and green.” While this myth has some grounding in reality (New Zealand
in most ways really is a beautiful, green country), it hides many of the
environmental mishaps that have occurred over the past 100+ years and
serves the economic interests of stakeholders (like tourism and agricultural
export industries) who benefit significantly from the label. There is
also what I have called, the “practicality myth”, which emphasizes
the role of Kiwi resourcefulness, innovativeness, and pragmatism in helping
New Zealand survive in the face of its historically isolated and economically
vulnerable place in the world. This myth serves the interests of many
economic policy makers and farming organizations by providing a compelling
economic rationale why, for example, industrial farming methods were necessary
during the 1960s and, in the case of genetic engineering, why “preserving
opportunities” with a uniquely Kiwi emphasis, made sense for New
Zealand facing a 21st century global economy.
In the context of these two powerful cultural myths I began to understand
how, despite considerable opposition to genetic engineering, the Royal
Commission opted to allow development of the technology. Inherent in the
purity myth is a faith that despite ecological mishaps – be they
wide-scale burning of native bush, the introduction of exotic species
like possums, weasels and stoats, or the accidental release of a “superweed”
in the future – the land will remain beautiful, natural and green.
Inherent in the practicality myth is a belief that New Zealand is economically
vulnerable and that through Kiwi resourcefulness and innovativeness, the
country can identify niche products and markets for unique transgenic
technologies and be a player in the high-technology game of genetic engineering.
In talking to scientists, farmers, and members of farm support organizations,
I became aware of the confidence with which they believed they can manage
the ecological or food safety concerns that have made the technology so
contentious.
That was 2005 and I have moved on to other business and organizationally-related
research topics since then. That said, I do wonder how these issues have
changed since then, if at all. I would love to return to investigate how
these same stakeholders view transgenic technologies now, what arguments
they are making now and how they differ from their arguments in 2005,
and how in 2009 public debate in the context of cultural myth has influenced
public policy related to transgenic technologies in agriculture for New
Zealand.
On a personal note, since 2005 I have returned to New Zealand twice –
once to speak at a biotechnology conference and another time to teach
an MBA course at Victoria University of Wellington. In addition to my
research and teaching endeavors at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI),
right now I am advising a team of students who are investigating the feasibility
of setting up a permanent WPI Interactive Qualifying Project center in
Wellington. If my university decides to create a center there, I would
become the director and each year, beginning in 2010 or 2011, two WPI
faculty would bring 24-28 students (in teams of four) to work on 6-7 projects
at various agencies and not-for-profit organizations in and around Wellington.
For more information on our project program, please go to www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/IGSD/iqp.html
Hopefully, my family and I will have many more visits to New Zealand,
a place for which we have enormous affinity, many friends, and wonderful
memories.
Michael Elmes and family in Wellington
during his Fulbright exchange
