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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Culturing Development: Bananas, Petri Dishes and 'Mad Science' |
| Author: | Smith, James |
| Year: | 2007 |
| Periodical: | Journal of Eastern African Studies |
| Volume: | 1 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Period: | July |
| Pages: | 212-233 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Kenya |
| Subjects: | biotechnology bananas agricultural research Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/17531050701452424 |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses a biotechnology-focused project which aims to promote the development and adoption of tissue culture bananas by small-scale farmers in Kenya. The paper highlights the generation of several important narratives that are used to justify the development and dissemination of this technology. First, a disaster narrative, a series of claims regarding rural livelihoods and banana production in Kenya, is generated. This creates a political and technical space for the creation of a new science that can solve these problems. Finally a series of claims regarding the efficacy of the technology in alleviating poverty are made. The project wields these various constructs to create a particular projection of rural Kenya and banana production, deploying data, statistics, economics and 'facts' in order to continually redefine the project as a success. The project can, through a process of defining its own boundaries and limits, justify a technology-led solution to a complex and nuanced set of problems - the biological subsuming the political. The project thus succeeds as a generator of discourses as much as a generator of technologies. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |
