A new critical social science research agenda on pesticides

Bibliographic Data

ID5778883
AuthorsBecky Mansfield (0000-0003-2120-462X, The Ohio State University), Marion Werner (0000-0002-5000-3053, University at Buffalo, State University of New York), C Berndt (0000-0003-0955-6585, University of Zurich, corresponding author), Annie Shattuck (0000-0003-4127-8108, Indiana University Bloomington), Ryan E Galt (0000-0002-0243-5636, University of California, Davis), Bryan Williams (0000-0002-8094-1841, Mississippi State University), Luis Arturo Ramos (0000-0003-1024-0289, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya), Fernando R Barri (0000-0003-0838-2763, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba), M Ishii (0000-0003-2794-9067, Action Network), Johana Kunin (0000-0001-9809-4196, National University of General San Martín), Pablo Lapegna (0000-0003-3196-2897, University of Georgia), Adam M Romero (0000-0002-4831-0409, University of Washington Bothell), Andrés Caicedo (0000-0001-5283-2376, University of California, Berkeley), Abhigya, Abhigya Abhigya (0000-0002-4925-0997, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi), Soledad Castro-Varga (0000-0002-1040-0580, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona), Eileen Marquez (0000-0003-1391-4664, Action Network), Emily Marquez, Diana Ojeda Ojeda (0000-0003-2009-8060, Universidad de los Andes), Fernando Ramírez (0000-0001-6050-5877, Universidad Nacional), Anne Tittor (0000-0002-7114-3602, Carl Zeiss (Germany))
Year2023
Volume41
Issue2
Pages395-412
Publication date2023-08-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAgriculture and Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0889-048X • E-ISSN: 1572-8366
PublisherSpringer Nature (Netherlands) (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1007/s10460-023-10492-w
OpenAlexW4385723862
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited98

The global pesticide complex has transformed over the past two decades, but social science research has not kept pace. The rise of an enormous generics sector, shifts in geographies of pesticide production, and dynamics of agrarian change have led to more pesticide use, expanding to farm systems that hitherto used few such inputs. Declining effectiveness due to pesticide resistance and anemic institutional support for non-chemical alternatives also have driven intensification in conventional systems. As an inter-disciplinary network of pesticide scholars, we seek to renew the social science research agenda on pesticides to better understand this suite of contemporary changes. To identify research priorities, challenges, and opportunities, we develop the pesticide complex as a heuristic device to highlight the reciprocal and iterative interactions among agricultural practice, the agrochemical industry, civil society-shaped regulatory actions, and contested knowledge of toxicity. Ultimately, collaborations among social scientists and across the social and biophysical sciences can illuminate recent transformations and their uneven socioecological effects. A reinvigorated critical scholarship that embraces the multifaceted nature of pesticides can identify the social and ecological constraints that drive pesticide use and support alternatives to chemically driven industrial agriculture

Agrochemical · Discipline · Pace · Insect and Pesticide Research · Pesticide and Herbicide Environmental Studies · Pesticide Exposure and Toxicity

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