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There is strong evidence that a new social movement against genetic engineering (ge) in agriculture—or the “anti-ge movement,” for short1—has had a significant impact on the regulation of these new production technologies ,the public awareness and acceptance of genetically modified foods, and the economic fortunes of the agricultural biotechnology industry (Barrett ; Kilman ; Schurman and Munro ). Anti-ge activists have catalyzed important new regulatory restraints on the technology, including insect refuge requirements for genetically engineered crops, a multiyear moratorium on new ge crop approvals in Europe, new labeling laws in many countries, and the negotiation of a new biosafety protocol under the auspices of the United Nations.Under activist pressure in the United States, McDonalds backed away from using genetically engineered potatoes to make fries for fear of a consumer backlash, and the supermarket chain Trader Joe’s declared itself ge-free.In  a coalition of U.S.-based activists exposed the presence of an unapproved genetically engineered corn (StarLink®) in the food supply,leading to millions of dollars’worth of product recalls,crop“buybacks ,” and enormous losses for U.S. companies and agricultural exporters (Harl et al. ; Lin, Price, and Allen ). The Starlink incident also helped galvanize the development of an “identity preservation” system for genetically engineered foods, and added impetus to efforts to establish new international trade standards for ge foods, under the auspices of the Codex Alimentarious Commission. 6 sustaining outrage: cultural capital, strategic location, and motivating sensibilities in the u.s. anti-genetic engineering movement William A. Munro and Rachel A. Schurman 1. We use the term “anti-ge movement” with some misgivings because those in the movement take a range of positions on the technology, from being totally opposed, to wanting to see the technology better studied,regulated,and subjected to democratic discussion.The reader should keep this variation in mind. The biotechnology industry has admitted that these actions and changes have affected its reputation and hurt it economically.As a result of the activists ’ multipronged attack, some of the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology firms narrowed their ge crop focus to a few select crops and are taking a less “bullish” stance toward the technology (Barrett ; Belsie ; Bernton ; author interviews). The industry was also moved to participate in several stakeholder dialogues, initiated “listening sessions” with ardent critics (Gilbert ;Krueger ),and formed a well-financed new countermovement, spearheaded by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (Barboza ). These trends offer several avenues for exploring the issues of agency that motivate this volume. Certainly, the emergence of the anti-ge movement depicts the self-willed and purposive actions,relatively independent of structural constraints, that are the markers of agency (see Wright and Middendorf ’s introduction to this volume). But what kind of agency is it? How can we explain why these activists—a numerically small group by any measure— have managed to incite such significant change? If this is a new social movement , what are its characteristics, and from where does it derive its power? If we are to understand the role of social forces as agents of change—“from below,” so to speak—in the agrifood system, it is necessary to answer these questions. This requires us to understand more fully what drives the actors who make up the antibiotech movement, and what their political and organizational strengths (and weaknesses) are. We need, in other words, a social analysis of the movement. In this chapter we take an in-depth look at the origins and historical development of the anti-ge movement in the United States. To be sure, the anti-ge movement today is a broad transnational movement with roots and bases in many different countries. The U.S. movement is one component of it. But it does not have its origins in a consumer backlash expanding out of Europe in the early s, as some commentators have suggested. Nor has it grown from a radical and disaffected fringe of ecomalcontents. As we show here, the U.S. anti-ge movement has deeper and independent historical roots in a venerable tradition of social movement politics.Yet it also has its own peculiar organizational and ideological characteristics,shaped by the nature of the issue and the historical moment, as well as by the social backgrounds of its core members. Far from being dependent on external developments, it has a longer history of organizing around agricultural biotechnology than any other movement, and it has played an important role in helping to catalyze the emergence of anti-ge...

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