The Politics of Counter-Expertise on Aerial Spraying

Social Movements Denouncing Pesticide Risk Governance in the Philippines

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3985341
AutoresLisette Nikol (0000-0001-8518-1346, Rural Sociology, Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, The Netherlands), Kees Jansen (0000-0003-4050-7407, Rural Sociology, Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen50
Número1
Páginas99-124
Fecha de publicación2020-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Contemporary Asia (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0047-2336 • E-ISSN: 1752-7554
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00472336.2018.1551962
OpenAlexW2904629342
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas45

In various places in the world, aerial spraying of pesticides has met with resistance from local communities potentially endangered by toxic pesticide drift. Social movements, and the counter-expertise that they mobilise, often trigger changes in state regulations of the practice. This article describes such struggles over risk regulation in the Philippines, where aerial spraying is common in large monoculture banana plantations. It has provoked local activism contesting the socio-economic power of landed and business elites and has challenged the government's approach to managing pesticide risks. This article develops the argument that different types of counter-expertise must be recognised. The case shows that it can be difficult for movements to articulate these different types of counter-expertise. Furthermore, the weak state characteristics of the Philippine state has shaped the ambiguous responses of risk governance to multiple actors' divergent knowledge claims. The result is a legal impasse in which civil society has successfully pushed the issue of aerial spraying onto the national political arena, but the state has as yet been unable to develop a comprehensive pesticide risk regulation independent of powerful business interests

Argument (complex analysis · Biology · Civil society · Corporate governance · Economics · Government (linguistics · Political ecology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social movement · Sociology · State (computer science · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Finance · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies