This event will be hybrid, to register for the virtual session, click here; to register for in-person, click here.
Speaker: Pablo Lapegna, DRCLAS Peggy Rockefeller Visiting Scholars & Fellows; Associate Professor of Sociology and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Georgia, GA
Moderated by: Erin Goodman, Director of the Weatherhead Scholars Program, Harvard University
Since they were introduced in Argentina in 1996, genetically modified (GM) soybeans have fed an agrarian export boom bringing economic prosperity to farmers and agribusinesses. GM soybeans are herbicide-resistant, which means that millions of liters of herbicides are sprayed in Argentina in any given year, raising concerns about the risks of agrochemical exposure. How do people reconcile the economic benefits afforded by GM crops and the claims about the negative environmental and health impacts of agrochemicals? And what do the entanglements between humans and plants, soils, and agrochemicals reveal about the future of farming?
Pablo Lapegna is Associate Professor of Sociology and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Georgia. He teaches and writes about social movements, environmental issues, critical agrarian studies, development, and global processes, with a focus on Argentina and using qualitative methods. His book "Soybeans and Power: Genetically Modified Crops, Environmental Politics, and Social Movements in Argentina" (Oxford University Press, 2016) has won the 2017 Best Book Award of the Sociology of Development Section, American Sociological Association. His current project (with Dr. Johana Kunin, UNSAM/CONICET, Argentina) examines how middle-size farmers and people living in rural towns of the Argentine plains reconcile the socio-economic benefits afforded by herbicide-resistant crops, and its environmental and health impacts.
Erin Goodman joined the Weatherhead Center in February 2021 from the Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad (CASA), a non-profit academic consortium of twelve leading universities, where she coordinated research initiatives across eight CASA study sites in Europe and Latin America since 2018. Before that, she worked at Harvard for 15 years, most recently as associate director for academic programs at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (2014–2018). Erin is the co-editor of three volumes centered on historical and collective memory, including Reflections on Memory and Democracy with Merilee S. Grindle (Harvard University Press, 2016), and the translator of several books and articles in a variety of disciplines and genres. Erin earned an EdM in International Education Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a BA in International Relations at Wellesley College, and a Certificate in English–Spanish Translation at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
LOCATION:S216, CGIS South STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20221031T160000Z DTEND:20221031T173000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR