| This dissertation research provides an account of anti-genetic engineering activists' efforts to shape the regulation and containment of genetically engineered organisms (GEOs), examining the uneven power relations in mobilizations against three commodities and at the local, state, and national scales. Genetically engineered (GE) corn, GE salmon, and GE rice are compared to explain why some commodities receive more regulatory attention than others. This dissertation also explores several activist strategies for contesting the social and environmental dimensions of GEOs, including county GE-free zones, state regulations, federal and international containment policy, and consumer politics. Unveiling the political forces at work in shaping social movement efficacy and governance reveals how the social and environmental dimensions of GEOs are profoundly bound up in other political projects, such as changing trade regimes, agro-food system restructuring, declining public research funds. GEOs are caught in the crosshairs of multiple actors' targets, even including actors outside the anti-GE activist network. The complex outcome of political forces profoundly influences the efficacy of anti-GE activism. Examining the interaction of these political forces offers a site to explore how anti-GE activism has met varying degrees of opposition in different places, scales, and commodities. |
