CASCA/SANA2016 panel CFP: Seeds and power

Seeds and power

Farmers face complex pressures to adopt so-called modern varieties of
seed, ranging from development projects that prioritize industrial
inputs to trade agreements that require the adoption of intellectual
property rights or seed certification laws, among other factors.
Activists argue that these pressures, along with seed regulations that
criminalize the exchange of traditional varieties, are part of a new
enclosure movement that seeks to advance the market for transnational
seed corporations and the industrial food system.
This panel explores political conflicts over seed as property,
knowledge and labour. Do competing understandings of seed –as the
results of particular forms of expertise and particular types of
labour, for example-- contribute to such conflicts, and if so, how?
Can these conflicts over seed be understood as ontological conflicts?
And how might struggles over seed provide insight into understandings
of the commons, agricultural development, and peasant resistance and
identities?

Please email an abstract of your paper (up to 150 words) and your
affiliation to Liz Fitting (Email: Elizabeth.fitting@dal.ca) by
January 30th. Presenters will be notified whether they are accepted on
the panel within 2 to 3 days and asked to register for the conference
before the February 5 conference registration deadline. Please see
conference website for more information about submissions, location,
and conference theme. www.cascasana2016.com