Agroecology as Participatory Science

Emerging Alternatives to Technology Transfer Extension Practice

Bibliographic Data

ID5337552
AuthorsKeith Douglass Warner (Santa Clara University, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume33
Issue6
Pages754-777
Publication date2008-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243907309851
OpenAlexW2146894492
LanguageEN
Citations received34
References cited27

The discourses of agricultural extension reveal how actors represent their scientific activities and goals. The "transfer of technology" discourse developed with the professional U.S. extension service, reproducing its expert/lay power relations. Agroecology is emerging as a systems approach to preventing agricultural pollution. Its theoreticians argue that agroecology cannot be transferred like technology but must be extended through networks of participatory social learning. In California, hundreds of actors and dozens of institutions have cocreated agroecological partnerships using this alternative extension model. They have developed three alternative extension discourses to represent and explain their activities. Bruno Latour's "circulatory system of science" model provides a superior theoretical framework for interpreting the participation and discourses of diverse actors in this extension practice

Agricultural extension · Agriculture · Agroecology · Citizen journalism · Engineering ethics · Geography · Political science · Sociology · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Computer Science · Engineering · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Organic Food and Agriculture

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