Sacred Maize against a Legal Maze

The Diversity of Resistance to Guatemala’s ‘Monsanto Law’

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12901455
AutoresLiza Grandia (University of California, Davis, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen11
Número1
Páginas56-85
Fecha de publicación2017-07-04
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal for the Study of Religion Nature and Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1749-4907 • E-ISSN: 1749-4915
EditorialEquinox Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1558/jsrnc.30666
OpenAlexW2729200609
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10

I chronicle here how a small country deled one of the world’s largest corporations and, in the process, reinvigorated civic hopes for a more democratic future. In the summer of 2014, massive mobilizations across Guatemala forced its legislature to repeal a plant varieties protection act, dubbed the ‘Monsanto Law’ that would otherwise have legalized genetically modiled (GM) crops in one of the few countries worldwide that prohibits them. Harnessing Raymond Williams’s distinction between residual/emergent and incorporated/unincorporated counter-hegemonies, I examine how diverse classes and interest groups articulated their opposition to the law through expressions of ‘moral economy’ across social media and news platforms. With respect to Guatemala’s indigenous majority, I explain how and why Maya leaders uncompromisingly regard GM corn as blasphemy through my prior cultural and historical research on the centrality of maize for indigenous economic survival, community cohesion, autonomy, and spiritual identity

Autonomy · Blasphemy · Democracy · Indigenous · Legislature · Opposition (politics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Repeal · Sociology · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law