Pesticides E-Book
142,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Serie: ISTE Invoiced
- Sprache: Englisch
The use of pesticides is a subject of intense public debate. Whether in media, legal, terminological or political terms, the subject is migrating from a strictly agricultural universe to a global, social problem.
Given the complexity of current and future issues, Pesticides provides a forum for multidisciplinary dialogue and debate on plant protection products within the humanities and social sciences. It presents reflections on the discursive and argumentative activity of the various players and arenas in the debate, and on the development and testing of consensus through controversy and counter-discourse.
This book examines the scientific and communication practices of economic and industrial players (influence and lobbying), agricultural practices in terms of pesticide exposure, and the legal proceedings and initiatives of local authorities and associations. It also seeks to shed light on the media coverage of health and environmental issues surrounding pesticides.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 411
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Author Presentation
Editors
Authors
Foreword
Introduction
Historicizing and politicizing pesticide use
Controversial molecules, disputed pesticides
Pesticides through the humanities and social sciences prism: the three phases of the book
References
1 Ergotoxicology in Action: Understanding Work-Activity Pesticide Exposures
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Ergotoxicology
1.3. Examples of ergotoxicology applications in agriculture
1.4. Contributions and limits of ergotoxicology to the characterization of pesticide exposure
1.5. References
2 Thinking about Pesticides in Terms of a “Socio-technical Lock-in” of Information
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Communicating using the term
pesticide
: why and how?
2.3. Commitments to monitoring the use of plant protection products in the definition of food “quality”
2.4. The role of plant protection product use in quality assessment using digital devices
2.5. Initiatives to “unlock information”: the case of Zéro résidu de pesticides and Planet-score
2.6. Conclusion
2.7. References
3 Activist Measures and Legal Levers: An Interview with Dominique Masset
There are numerous environmental issues that sometimes compete with one another. What led you to take an interest in pesticides in your career as an activist?
Can you tell us about how the emergence of the
Campagne Glyphosate
came about?
Do you think that citizens have the right to propose expertise in scientific controversies? What about the role of scientists and their voice in such matters?
What led you to choose BioCheck as your laboratory for urinalysis?
For several years now, legal levers have been increasingly used in activist measures. When did they start to be used and what were the obstacles and advantages?
Farmers despise the fact that their production needs are not being considered, and that they do not have enough alternatives to deal with the ban on certain products (or active substances) that are deemed to be harmful. How would you respond?
Certain alternatives to pesticides (known as biocontrol products), such as sulfur and copper, have a potentially negative impact (on health, the environment and, in the case of copper, in the neighborhood through odors). What do you think of their use in place of conventional pesticides?
Several actions were covered by the media, notably when activists painted glyphosate cans in garden centers. What can you say about these actions? Do you think they are useful (or even convincing) for citizens? Is it to draw attention to the potentially toxic products sold in garden centers (and often packaged in green)? Or is there another objective?
In terms of campaigns, what are the methods of action, the images and the speeches that succeed in mobilizing the greatest number of people? What are the powerful symbols, as the media are fond of this type of action? What becomes audible and can be picked up by the media?
Apart from glyphosate, what are the other most symbolic products or molecules that the general public is calling for to be regulated or banned?
And what about neonicotinoids? Thanks to questions about beetroots this is becoming increasingly visible, even though we have been using them for 30 years and no one had ever heard of them. Is it this whole political effect of prohibition, reauthorization and derogation that is making it visible?
We all know that the climate issue has become central to environmental action. So what role does the pesticide issue currently play in society?
Have you seen any changes in the way the issue has been handled by the media, say over the past 10 years or so? And how would you describe your relations with the media?
To conclude, we are going to leave the media sphere for those who decide on European regulations. There will be debates on the reauthorization of glyphosate in December 2022. Do you think legislators are sufficiently informed to act?
4 The Globalization of Regulatory Science on Pesticides: History and Effects on European Law
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Chemical safety ideas and tools promoted worldwide by the OECD
4.3. The effects of the OECD’s promotion of chemical safety ideas and tools in European law
4.4. Conclusion
4.5. References
5 Fighting the Colorado Potato Beetle in Francoist Spain (1939–1953)
5.1. Introduction
5.2. The technopolitics of pesticides
5.3. Autarky and arsenic pesticides
5.4. Controlling the Colorado beetle
5.5. The arrival of DDT
5.6. Controlling quality, neglecting risk
5.7. Conclusion
5.8. References
6 From Pesticides to Thyroid Diseases: Media Coverage of a Nameless Problem
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Thyroid diseases: publicization and media coverage
6.3. Methodology
6.4. Results: thyroid-disrupting pesticides, a nameless public health problem
6.5. Conclusion
6.6. References
7 Discursive Strategies of a Sociotechnical Network: The Case of Natural Plant Defense Stimulators
7.1. Introduction
7.2. The role of SDNs in the field of plant protection
7.3. Specificity of SDNs in areas of communication
7.4. A discursive approach separate to that of biopesticides
7.5. Conclusion
7.6. References
8 Circulation of Discourses and Counter-discourses about Pesticides on Social Networks
8.1. Introduction
8.2. A discursive analysis of corpora
8.3. Corpus and methodology
8.4. Analysis results
8.5. Pesticides, between food and agricultural production
8.6. A variety of positions
8.7. Main themes
8.8. Conclusion
8.9. References
List of Authors
Index
Other titles from iSTE in Science, Society and New Technologies
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 2
Table 2.1. Frequency of quality characteristics explicitly used by digital dev...
Table 2.2. (Anonymized) list of digital device representatives that were inter...
Chapter 7
Table 7.1. SDN predication in scientific literature
Table 7.2. Some SDN trade names
Table 7.3. Quotes from press articles in the “Science” category
Table 7.4. Quotes from press articles in the “Economics (innovation)” category...
Table 7.5. Quotes from press articles in the “Economics (other)” category...
Table 7.6. Quotes from press articles in the “Agriculture” category...
Table 7.7. Popular press articles
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1. Measuring contamination (Garrigou 2011, p. 65).
Figure 1.2. Metrology results (by patches) by activity phase. Adapted from Bal...
Figure 1.3. Measuring skin contamination according to whether or not coveralls...
Figure 1.4. Thermal fogger inserted into the wall of the potato storage buildi...
Figure 1.5. Representation of the application of metrology tools used for the ...
Figure 1.6. Video of activity synchronized with heart rate measurement. a) Ins...
Figure 1.7. Unloading the thermal fogger. Hand contact with barrel. 11:50 a.m....
Figure 1.8. Installation of a CIPC retention bucket under the cannon prior to ...
Figure 1.9. Unexpected release of CIPC fog around the farmer, on the other sid...
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1. Tray of cherry tomatoes marketed by Les paysans de Rougeline.
Figure 2.2. Sides of the tray marketed by Les paysans de Rougeline.
Figure 2.3. Planet-score visual of pesticides, biodiversity and climate (combi...
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1. Media coverage of thyroid disease by Le Monde
Figure 6.2. Media coverage of the links between thyroid diseases and endocrine...
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1. Number of articles on SDNs by news outlet and category.
Figure 7.2. Number of articles on SDNs by year and category.
Figure 7.3. Number of articles on SDNs by theme and category.
Figure 7.4. Number of articles on biopesticides (above) and SDNs (below) (see ...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1. Screenshot of CrowdTangle digital tool
Figure 8.2. Screenshot of the Facepager digital tool
Figure 8.3. Screenshot of the Iramuteq digital tool.
Figure 8.4. Word cloud of the Iramuteq corpus
Figure 8.5. Similarity analysis of the Iramuteq corpus.
Figure 8.6. Dendrogram analysis of the Iramuteq corpus.
Figure 8.7. Correspondence factor analysis (CFA) of the Iramuteq corpus.
Figure 8.8. Correspondence factor analysis (CFA) of the Iramuteq corpus variab...
Guide
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Author Presentation
Foreword
Introduction
Begin Reading
List of Authors
Index
Other titles from iSTE in Science, Society and New Technologies
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
Pages
iii
iv
ix
x
xi
xii
xiii
xiv
xv
xvi
xvii
xix
xx
xxi
xxii
xxiii
xxiv
xxv
xxvi
xxvii
xxviii
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
Communication, Environment,Science and Society Set
coordinated byAndrea Catellani and Céline Pascual Espuny
Volume 4
Pesticides
Pluridisciplinary Dialogues in Social and Human Sciences
Edited by
Nataly Botero
Hélène Ledouble
François Allard-Huver
First published 2024 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd27-37 St George’s RoadLondon SW19 4EUUK
www.iste.co.uk
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030USA
www.wiley.com
© ISTE Ltd 2024The rights of Nataly Botero, Hélène Ledouble and François Allard-Huver to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2024946270
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA CIP record for this book is available from the British LibraryISBN 978-1-78630-950-1
Author Presentation
Editors
François Allard-Huver
François Allard-Huver is an Associate Professor in strategic and digital communication at Université Catholique de l’Ouest, Angers (UCO). His work focuses on environmental and health controversies surrounding food and pesticides. He is particularly interested in the question of “affairs” in the media and the public sphere. He also works on risks, sustainable development and organizations, with a particular focus on the CSR communication and public relations strategies of various players in the public sphere (institutions, civil society, lobbies, industry). He regularly participates in symposia and conferences on the relationship between sustainable development, risks, controversy, food and communication.
A member of the management committee of the Communication, environnement, science et société (CESS) study and research group of the Société française des sciences de l’information et de la communication1, he is also the scientific director of the Académie des controverses et de la communication sensible (ACCS)2.
Nataly Botero
Nataly Botero is an Associate Professor in information and communication sciences at the Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas and a researcher at Carism, France. As a discourse analyst and semiotician, her research focuses on the mediatization of ecological issues in France, both in terms of the formal features of these discourses (romanticism, use of metaphors) and public issues (programmed obsolescence, air pollution, pesticides). She has also worked on digital practices related to health and healthcare (rare dermatological conditions, continuation of pregnancy and neonatal palliative care). Her most recent publications are Influenceurs et influenceuses santé3 and Pollution atmosphérique à la une : visibilité médiatique d’un problème environnemental4.
Hélène Ledouble
Hélène Ledouble is an Associate Professor in applied linguistics at the Université de Toulon, France, and a researcher at the Babel laboratory. She works on popular science publications dealing with environmental issues, and is particularly interested in the field of agroecology. Her most recent publications are dedicated to the media coverage of natural plant protection mechanisms (biocontrol, biological control and biopesticides) in the French and English daily press5.
Authors
Estera Badau
Estera Badau is an Associate Professor in information and communication sciences at the CIMEOS laboratory at the Université de Bourgogne (Communications, media coverage, organizations, knowledge), France. Since completing her doctorate, her research has focused on the links between health and food. After her CIFRE thesis on the links between antibiotic resistance and food, she joined the CIMEOS laboratory, where she is currently leading a research project on thyroid diseases. Her most recent publications are Médiatisation des liens entre l’usage alimentaire du sel et la santé dans le quotidien Le Monde6 and L’alimentation à l’épreuve du risque et de la controverse7.
Carole Barthélémy
Carole Barthélémy is a sociologist at Aix-Marseille Université (Population Environment Development Laboratory). She is involved in environmental sociology, working on environmental conflicts and mobilization and on pollution in urban and rural areas. Since 2020, she has coordinated the SHS-pesticides network with Eve-Bureau Point.
José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez
José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez is a professor of the history of science at the University of Valencia and a member of the Institut Interuniversitari López Piñero (Spain). His research focuses on the history of forensic medicine and toxic products in France and Spain in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is the author of Entre el fiscal y el verdugo8, a biography of Matthieu Orfila (1787–1853), a renowned Spanish toxicologist. His latest book is Tóxicos: Pasado y Presente9. His current research project focuses on the social and cultural history of pesticides in 20th-century Spain10.
Antoine Blanchard
Antoine Blanchard holds a degree in agricultural engineering and a master’s degree in the social studies of science and technology. His personal and professional career has taken several directions. His first focus is on digital transformations in the academic and research field: he has been working on these issues at the University of Bordeaux, France, since 2014, with a break between 2020 and 2023 within the Datactivist cooperative society. His second focus is a personal and associative commitment to science-society issues; after co-founding and chairing the Café des sciences community of web popularizers, he joined the board of directors of the Traces association. Last but not least, he holds an interest in environmental issues, particularly in relation to agriculture. He is a freelance researcher on these topics, drawing on approaches from information and communication sciences, digital humanities, and social studies of science and technology.
Eve Bureau-Point
Eve Bureau-Point is an anthropologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (Centre Norbert Elias, Marseille). She conducts research in France and Cambodia on the social life of pesticides (production, market, regulation, uses, waste and residue management). At various stages of her career, she has studied the social construction of environmental health problems. Since 2020, she has coordinated the SHS-pesticides network with Carole Barthélémy.
Louis Galey
Louis Galey is a lecturer in ergonomics at the Université Paris Nanterre, France and a member of the Travail, ergonomie, orientation et organisations (TE2O) team within the Laboratoire parisien de psychologie sociale (LAPPS). He took part in the ARC-CMR project as a member of the EPICENE (Epidemiology of Cancers and Environmental Exposure) team (INSERM, Université de Bordeaux). His doctoral thesis focused on the development of a method for “understanding nanoparticle exposure situations by integrating work activity into the measurement process” in order to build prevention. His postdoctorate at the Centre de recherche sur le travail et le développement (CRTD, CNAM) focused on the activities of social partners in the context of digital transformations.
Alain Garrigou
Alain Garrigou is a professor of ergonomics in INSERM’s EPICENE team, and the vice-president in charge of quality of life and health at work at the Université de Bordeaux. His doctoral thesis, supported in 1992 at the CNAM, focused on worker participation in the design of the Figaro printing works. He carries on the legacy of ergonomics pioneers such as Alain Wisner, Catherine Teiger and Antoine Laville, both conceptually and methodologically, as well as the political role of ergonomics research in responding to the social and technological challenges put forward by studies and its changes. For over ten years, he has contributed to the development of ergotoxicology, a transdisciplinary approach integrating ergonomics, public health, toxicology, anthropology and law, with the aim of contributing to the prevention of exposure to substances which can cause cancer.
Fabienne Goutille
Fabienne Goutille is a researcher-speaker in HSS, attached to INRAE’s ETTIS (Environment, Territories in Transition, Infrastructures and Societies) research unit. She took part in the ARC-CMR project as a member of the EPICENE team at INSERM (Université de Bordeaux, France). Her doctoral thesis in ergonomics deals with the construction of pesticide risk prevention, and addresses the issue of how farmers’ concerns can be taken into account in occupational health policies through extended research communities. The aim of her current work is to support individuals who are working and to make visible and address what challenges them by contributing to the development of personal and collective agency, particularly through the proposal of methods for shared analysis of work or exposures based on popular metrology and developmental ergotoxicology.
Annie Martin
Annie Martin holds a doctorate in private law and is a research fellow at the CNRS Societies, Stakeholders and Governments in Europe. She has a background in private international law and international trade law. Her publications focus on economic law and space law. More recently, her research has focused on conflicts of interest in the field of pharmaceuticals, European pesticide regulation, and the dissemination of standards between international organizations in the chemical sector. She is the author of several book chapters, including “Managing conflicts of interests at the European Medicines Agency. Success or weakness of the soft law tools?”11 and “The limits to access to information on risks concerning pesticides”12.
Clémence Rambaud
Clémence Rambaud, a labor lawyer, took part in the ARC-CMR project in 2015 as part of INSERM’s EPICENE team.
Jan Smolinski
Jan Smolinski holds a doctorate in sociology, specializing in the sociology of uses, markets and the digital environment, using pragmatic methods. His research ranges from the design of innovations to their assessment, and examines how digital technologies transform user experiences. Sectors include the food industry, mechanical engineering training, tourism, mobile marketing and cultural mediation. As a postdoctoral fellow in the SAGE (Societies, Actors, Government in Europe) laboratory at the University of Strasbourg, France, he is currently involved in the NA’Stras (digital tools for healthy and sustainable food in Strasbourg and the Bas-Rhin region) and Phyt’Info (digital tools for pesticide reduction) projects. His most recent publications are entitled Des dispositifs numériques d’aide aux choix alimentaires aux dispositifs des jugements : quelle régulation de l’information des consommateurs?13, Un musée qui conjugue les temps composes14 and How can the use of a mobile application change the course of a sightseeing tour?15.
Laurence Thery
Laurence Thery is the Director of Aract Hauts-de-France (Agence régionale d’amélioration des conditions de travail), and holds a master’s degree in sociology from Sciences Po Paris. She coordinated the ARC-CMR project with Alain Garrigou in 2015.
Albin Wagener
Albin Wagener is Professor in discourse and communication analysis at the School of Social Sciences at the Catholic University of Lille. Working in the ETHICS research lab, he specifically works on digital, social and environmental discourse in the public, media and political spheres. He specializes in communication issues within social networks. He is the author of Blablabla : en finir avec le bavardage climatique16, Mèmologie : théorie postdigitale des mèmes17, Ecoarchie18 and Discours et système19. He has also written a study on representations and perceptions linked to climate issues in France, during Emmanuel Macron’s first five years in office (2017–2020)20.
Notes
1
French Society for Information and Communication Sciences.
2
For more information and recent publications, see:
www.allardhuver.fr
and
www.cv.archives-ouvertes.fr/francois-allard-huver
.
3
Botero, N. (2022). Influenceurs et influenceuses santé. In
Études de communication
, Sedda, P. and Hernandez Orellana, M. (eds), 58.
4
Botero, N. (2021). Pollution atmosphérique à la une : visibilité médiatique d’un problème environnemental.
Revue Française des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication
, 21.
5
Ledouble, H. (2024).
Popularizing Science: The Complex Terminological Interactions between Scientific and Press Discourses within the Field of Agroecology
. ISTE Ltd, London, and John Wiley & Sons, New York.
6
Badau, E. et al. (in press). Médiatisation des liens entre l’usage alimentaire du sel et la santé dans le quotidien
Le Monde
.
Le Temps des médias
, 41.
7
Badau, E. and Hugol-Gential, C. (2023). L’alimentation à l’épreuve du risque et de la controverse.
Manifeste du réseau AGAP
.
8
Bertomeu, J.R. (2019).
Entre el fiscal y el verdugo
. PUV, Valencia.
9
Bertomeu, J.R. (2021).
Tóxicos: Pasado y Presente
. Icaria, Barcelona.
10
For a list of his publications, see:
www.orcid.org/0000-0003-2040-4507
.
11
Martin, A. (2021). Managing conflicts of interests at the European Medicines Agency. Success or weakness of the soft law tools? In
Conflict of Interest and Medicine Knowledge, Practices and Mobilizations
, Hauray, B. et al. (eds). Routledge, London.
12
Martin, A. (2017). The limits to access to information on risks concerning pesticides. In
Governance and Perceptions of Hazardous Activities: A Franco-German and European Approach
, Kresse, B. and Lambert, E. (eds). University of Hagen, Hagen.
13
Smolinski, J. and Lambert, E. (in press). Des dispositifs numériques d’aide aux choix alimentaires aux dispositifs des jugements : quelle régulation de l’information des consommateurs ?
Revue interdisciplinaire d’études juridiques
.
14
Smolinski, J. (2021). Un musée qui conjugue les temps composés.
Antiquités nationales
, 50–51.
15
Smolinski, J. and Calvignac, C. (2019). How can the use of a mobile application change the course of a sightseeing tour?
Tourist Studies
.
16
Wagner, A. (2023).
Blablabla : en finir avec le bavardage climatique
. Éditions Le Robert, Paris.
17
Wagner, A. (2022).
Mèmologie : théorie postdigitale des mèmes
. Éditions de l’Université de Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble.
18
Wagner, A. (2021).
Ecoarchie
. Éditions du Croquant, Vulaines-sur-Seine.
19
Wagner, A. (2019).
Discours et système
. Peter Lang, Lausanne.
20
See:
www.sysdiscours.hypotheses.org
.
Foreword
With the growing power of questioning, social mobilization and lawsuits brought against industries, and also with the increase in public policy systems with reduction objectives, pesticides have become a concerning matter, shaking up the social, economic and political spheres. Researchers in the humanities and social sciences (HSS), attuned to societal changes, have become increasingly involved in these issues. Up until the end of the 20th century, pesticides were rarely the subject of studies in the HSS in their own right. However, since the 2000s, a field of study has been progressively emerging in French academia, with numerous studies, teams and researchers documenting the controversies raised by the production, regulation and use of pesticides1. It was against this backdrop of expanding work in the social sciences and humanities that a network was set up in February 2020. Coordinated by Eve Bureau-Point and Carole Barthélémy, it had a view to better identify the scientific community on the subject, the diversity of work in progress, and link people with their knowledge on the subject.
The network’s activities focused on organizing a series of study days (annual or biannual) and managing a mailing list designed to facilitate the flow of information concerning HSS work on pesticides (events, publications, calls for projects, etc.). To date, 120 people have subscribed: an almost equal number of men and women, 50 researchers, around 20 teacher-researchers, and 40 doctoral and postdoctoral students, underlining the interest of the subject for young researchers. Around 50 people work for EPSTs, mainly INRAE, while the others work in joint research units. Sociology (37 people) and anthropology (18 people) are the most represented disciplines. Researchers in agronomy (11) and life sciences (10) have also subscribed, underlining the network’s appeal to colleagues outside the HSS field. Economics (11), geography (7) and history (5) are the other main disciplines represented. In addition to facilitating exchanges within the pesticide research, this list is proving to be a very useful way of linking researchers with public policy or civil society players. They can also be used to meet a variety of social demands (such as finding speakers for public debates, improving the research-public policy interface, etc.). They also have several objectives during the study days: to deepen the angles of analysis in HSS on the “pesticides” matter, to reinforce interdisciplinarity (HSS/environmental sciences/medical sciences interactions) and to improve the link between science/society (impact of research in society, research systems and knowledge sharing). On each day, a moment of collective reflection is devoted to the network’s coordination and the choice of themes to be addressed on future days. Participants propose new topics, and an organizing committee is set up with the network’s initiators and theme leaders. Three study days were thus organized in 2020, 2021 and 2022, each of which was the subject of a publication (a thematic issue in the VertigO2 journal, an article for the “Vie de la recherche” section of the Natures, sciences et sociétés3 journal, and a collective work published by OCTARES)4. The fourth study-day event was held in Paris in March 2024, on the theme of pesticide industries.
Other events were organized in parallel with those of the network, such as the “Pesticides : dialogues pluridisciplinaires en sciences humaines et sociales” (Pesticides: multidisciplinary dialogues in the humanities and social sciences) study days in Dijon in October 2021, which led to the publication of this collective work. Organized by Nataly Botero, Hélène Ledouble and François Allard-Huver, as well as laboratories specializing in communication and media issues (CIMEOS, CREM, BABEL), these events have provided an opportunity to approach pesticides from the original perspective of linguistics, communication and interdisciplinarity. Case studies from sociology, ergonomics and economics were also presented on other aspects (prevention, public policy, farmer/riparian relations, etc.). The two-day event brought together around 30 participants, who specifically examined the discursive and argumentative activity surrounding pesticides, scientific and communication practices, legal initiatives and court proceedings, as well as productions from the cultural industries. These events were unique in that they brought together academic researchers, independent researchers and activists (crop reapers). Each of the conference contributors addressed these diverse issues from the perspective of their own discipline. Interdisciplinarity was a rare feature of the contributors’ research. As the title of this book suggests, the focus was on multidisciplinary. Interdisciplinarity, which implies a real co-construction of research from different disciplines, was ultimately not very frequent in the research schemes of the participants over these few days. Its modalities, benefits and limits can be analyzed in a more specific framework, yet to be determined.
Eve BUREAU-POINT
Centre Norbert-Elias, CNRS
Aix-Marseille Université
France
Carole BARTHÉLÉMY
Laboratoire Population
Environnement Développement
Aix-Marseille Université
France
Notes
1
Bureau-Point, E. and Temple, L. (2022). La recherche en sciences humaines et sociales sur l’objet pesticide dans le cadre académique français : état des lieux et perspectives.
VertigO – la revue électronique en sciences de l’environnement
, 22, 2.
2
Bureau-Point, E. et al. (2021). Les mondes agricoles face au problème des pesticides. Compromis, ajustements et négociations. Introduction au dossier.
VertigO – la revue électronique en sciences de l’environnement
, 21, 3.
3
Bureau-Point, E. et al. (2022). Focus sur les deuxièmes journées d’études du réseau sciences humaines et sociales/pesticides.
Natures, sciences, sociétés
, 30(1), 82–88.
4
See:
https://www.octares.com/accueil/306-exposition-aux-pesticides-ce-quen-disent-les-scienceshumaines-et-sociales.html
.
Introduction
This book presents the work of researchers in the humanities and social sciences (SHS), presented at a conference held at the University of Burgundy in Dijon on October 21 and 22, 2021. The aim of this scientific event was to provide an overview of contemporary research on pesticides in the humanities, as well as to encourage multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches on the subject.
Conceived and organized by researchers from the fields of information and communication science and linguistics, this conference outlined insufficient research in these disciplines. Indeed, the problem of pesticides seems to have been little explored in its communication, language and lexical aspects: a few articles were produced on the media coverage of pesticides in the written press (Ledouble 2020; Botero 2021) or on the controversial aspects of the subject. (Allard-Huver 2021). However, this issue was already debated by numerous geographers, sociologists, ergonomists, anthropologists and historians, which the conference brought together. Some were members of the SHS–Pesticides network, whose work reflects both a growing interest and a change in perspective in the SHS. While for much of the 20th century, pesticides were seen as a vector for agricultural modernization, a turning point has been reached in recent years: pesticides are increasingly being studied as problematic and controversial technologies (Galochet et al. 2008; Roussary et al. 2013; Aulagnier and Goulet 2017; Chateauraynaud and Debaz 2017; Chlous et al. 2017; Catellani et al. 2019; Foucart 2019; Jouzel 2019; Lambert 2020; Bureau-Point et al. 2022). The emergence of this research group and questions concerning the circulation of pesticide-related information in the public sphere reflect a deeper dynamic linked to environmental social sciences. Indeed, while the contribution of life sciences is essential to understanding and highlighting the issues surrounding the use of pesticides, so is the contribution of the SHS.
Our initial aim is to contribute to the emergence of cross-disciplinarity and the transfer of methods specific to interdisciplinarity, which has become necessary to understand the complexity of environmental issues (Jollivet 2008). Convinced of the richness that dialogues, confrontations and debates between different scientific disciplines can bring, such interdisciplinarity has proven difficult to implement and remains a work in progress on this subject, as on others. There are numerous barriers: the need for scientific acculturation to other disciplines; the identification of objects and the fields in between; the social organization of research (particularly in France, where disciplines have differentiated perimeters and are strongly framed by national bodies); the valorization of work in higher education and research; etc. The research presented in this book is therefore more of a multidisciplinary approach, which is nonetheless proving to be a fruitful scientific approach to the problems caused by pesticide use, and suggests avenues for further reflection.
As a result of our interest in discursive and linguistic aspects, this book pays particular attention to the ways in which the object of study is named, what it refers to and what it produces in terms of risks and benefits. Indeed, the act of naming “is less about designating fragments of reality than conveying the speakers’ social experience”1 (Branca Rosoff 2007, p. 14). As this social experience is not devoid of interest, the words used to refer to pesticides are conflicting and competitive. On the one hand, industries, trade unions and public authorities favor relatively established names such as “phytosanitary products” or “phytopharmaceuticals”, recalling the need for plant protection, implicitly suggesting the threat imposed by “crop enemies”, “pests” and “weeds”. These products are thus often presented as unavoidable for agricultural production, food sovereignty and competitiveness. As such, these names can be used in communication strategies aimed at presenting these products in a relatively neutral way, in contrast to current debates on the issues they raise. On the other hand, the names used by associations and professionals with alternative practices, such as “agro-toxic”, “biocide” and even “pesticide”, have a more conflictual and accusatory impact. We are therefore faced with the same reference, but with a lexicalization which conveys opposite values: while the former are focused on plant protection, the latter evoke their potential to destroy biodiversity.
Historicizing and politicizing pesticide use
Crop protection has been documented since antiquity, with the use of sulfur, copper and arsenic. From the 1960s onwards, agricultural production began to modernize, abandoning the production methods of agrarian societies and adapting to Fordist capitalism. This period saw a series of technological innovations that enabled unprecedented increases in yields: mechanization, irrigation, monocultures and synthetic pesticides (Deléage 2019). However, this green revolution was achieved “at the cost of serious environmental consequences” (Gisclard 2020, p. 15). Biologists in the United States became interested in these effects, as witnessed by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. At the same time, toxicologists set out to understand the consequences of pesticide use on human health. These studies were carried out thanks to public pressure, exerted by representatives of immigrant farm workers, who were particularly exposed (Jouzel 2019). With both a cognitive and a moral dimension, pesticide use has rapidly become a public problem in this country. From a cognitive point of view, a production of knowledge began to unfold, revealing facts and figures related to health consequences. Morally speaking, the highly problematic nature of the problem called for its resolution (Gusfield and Cefaï 2009, p. 9).
Historians and sociologists of science have identified three periods corresponding to modes of governance, linked to the widespread toxification of ecosystems and organisms (of which pesticides are just one manifestation). The first period is “government by control” (from the end of World War II to the end of the 1960s), in which pollution was seen as something that could be contained, circumscribed and limited. The second period is “government by risk” (from 1970 to 1990), in which the possibility of damage from pollution was accepted, but this damage remained manageable. The third period is “government by adaptation” (since the 1990s), characterized by the organization of a contaminated world that has become impossible to properly manage. The challenge is no longer to limit it, but to live with it, reflecting a shift in the paradigm of negative externalities, as public authorities disengage in favor of individuals, who are forced to manage their own exposure (Boudia and Jas 2019).
In Europe, challenging the dominant agricultural model only took place in the 1990s, placing farmers between the imperative of productivity and the expectations of civil society (Gisclard 2020), and also reflecting the complex position of regulators and institutions in charge of risk assessment and management. In France, large-scale public measures began with the Grenelle de l’environnement (political environmental forum), launched under the Sarkozy government in 2007. One of the working groups was mandated to reduce “the use of phytopharmaceutical products by 50% within ten years, if possible” (Ministère de l’Agriculture et de l’Alimentation 2020), giving rise to the Écophyto program. Two opposing perspectives clashed within this group: on the one hand, advocates of a systemic vision of agronomy, arguing for the profound transformation of agricultural practices; on the other hand, actors in favor of the substitution of the most dangerous pesticides (Aulagnier and Goulet 2017). This second vision was the one that prevailed from 2012 onwards, and which currently remains dominant in the Écophyto II plan, whose objective has been postponed to 2025. There are at least two reasons for the failure of the systemic vision: firstly, the obligation imposed by the political world to achieve results in the short term; secondly, the reluctance of those working in the field to embrace agri-environmental innovations, who perceived these experiments as risky (Roussary et al. 2013, p. 76).
Controversial molecules, disputed pesticides
Following the ban on domestic and urban use of pesticides in 2014, one of the world’s most widely used molecules (glyphosate) was classified as a probable carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 20152. This classification is highly controversial, with national agencies such as ANSES3 in France and the EPA4 in the United States disagreeing. At stake is the opposition between a “microscopic vision” of a toxicological nature, looking at effects substance by substance, and a “macroscopic vision” carried by epidemiology, looking at long-term effects on health (Jouzel 2019; Lambert 2020).
Despite this classification, the authorization of glyphosate was extended in November 2023 by the European Union for a further 10 years, until 2033. Some authors consider that this decision “was produced and calibrated according to preexisting political and economic interests” (Pénet 2019, p. 98), not scientific knowledge. This is not a matter of a lack of knowledge, but of “strategic ignorance”, leading to the dismissal of research that has already been carried out, or to the demonstration of the safety of controversial molecules. While the call for ever more research can be positive, it can also induce “the misleading idea that current knowledge is insufficient to take action” (Foucart 2021, p. 151).
The use of pesticides is currently the subject of intense public debate in the media, politics and associations. On the media front, recent studies have concluded that simplifying the distinction between “good” and “bad” pesticides (biopesticides versus chemical pesticides), as well as ambiguous terminology, prevents the general public from grasping these complex issues (Ledouble 2020). On the political front, the derogation granted in 2020 to neonicotinoids, the so-called “bee-killer” pesticides, has been the subject of considerable controversy. Clashing opinions from associations and citizens’ movements are rising up: by making this issue their own, they are turning it from a strictly agricultural issue into a societal one.
In the first quarter of 2023 alone, we discovered the extent of surface and groundwater pollution caused by chlorothalonil metabolites (despite it being banned in 2019); the Court of Justice of the European Union banned derogations for neonicotinoids; and the chlordecone trial in Martinique and Guadeloupe was finally dismissed. On the subject of chlordecone, this decision comes after many twists and turns: solutions to replace one product with others, derogations followed by a ban with no immediate effect, lack of monitoring and expertise on contamination, and recognition as a victim aimed solely at occupational cancers. These repeated failures have led some authors to bring up decisions based on a colonial vision of the overseas territories (Le Moal and Pierre-Charles 2022).
While damage to human health is a serious matter, damage to ecosystems and biodiversity is just as serious. The massive disappearance of insects and birds made the headlines in several newspapers during the same period, with these issues also being addressed by NGOs through the “justice for the living world” legal action. The negative consequences of pesticide use are numerous, protean and systemic (public health, water, air and soil pollution, threats to biodiversity), so much so that it would not be wrong to view them as a “crisis” (Baxerres et al. 2021).
Pesticides through the humanities and social sciences prism: the three phases of the book
This book is divided into three parts, each comprising two or three chapters. The first reflects on the dynamics of pesticide reduction in France, its practices and trajectories. The second looks at international approaches to pesticide use, while the third focuses on media, institutional and digital discourses on pesticides.
In the first part of this book, the issue of reducing pesticide use is addressed from ergotoxicological and sociological perspectives, as well as from the experience of a member of an association working to reduce or even ban the use of these products.
The study entitled “Ergotoxicology Applications to Characterize Pesticide Exposures in Real Work”5, by Fabienne Goutille and a team of multidisciplinary researchers (ergotoxicology, ergonomics, law and psychology), offers a review and reflections on the ergotoxicological approach. Based on two projects carried out in the agricultural sector, the authors show how ergotoxicology can be used to understand pesticide exposure and help reduce it, by highlighting the determinants of exposure. Ergotoxicology will thus help working people to understand the harmfulness of their work environment, and to transform it through the way they experience their own working conditions.
Jan Smolinski, a sociology researcher at the University of Strasbourg, presents a chapter entitled “Thinking about Pesticides in Terms of a ‘Socio-technical Lock-in’ of Information”6. According to the author, the context of “tense” food markets and “sensitive communication” linked to the use of the term “pesticides” invites us to consider the ways in which mentions or claims related to the use of phytosanitary products are expressed in the production process of food products. This chapter proposes a specification of this market context and examines the conditions for defining food quality, based on the exemplary co-construction of two sociotechnical consumer information systems that mention the term “pesticides”. Based on this observation, hypotheses are formulated with a view to extracting ways of unlocking or circumventing the constraints imposed by a “concerned” market.
This first part closes with an interview with Dominique Masset, an activist, member of the Faucheurs Volontaires collective, initiator and co-chairman of the Glyphosate Campaign and co-chairman of the Secrets toxiques campaign. In this interview, conducted by Nataly Botero, Hélène Ledouble and François Allard-Huver and entitled “Activist Measures and Legal Levers: An Interview with Dominique Masset”7, the interviewee looks back at the origins of his activism, his motivations and the different modalities of environmental struggles (legal recourse, communication, media relations). This exchange details a reflexive metadiscourse from associative actors on how to name their causes, how to communicate appropriately to different audiences, and how to encourage understanding of the issues and garner commitment from everyone. Dominique Masset insists on the distinction between farmers and the system in which they are caught, pointing in particular to the responsibilities of an agricultural production system that is solely driven by the pursuit for financial profit, which harms both its workers and ecosystems.
The second part presents two chapters based on an international, legal, historical and socio-economic perspective. This section opens with a contribution by Annie Martin, a CNRS research fellow, entitled “The Globalization of Regulatory Science on Pesticides: History and Effects on European Law”8. This chapter offers a legal and historical perspective on the globalization of regulatory science on pesticides as controversial objects. It invites us to question the history of technical norms by showing the discrepancy between the regulations that make the marketing of pesticides conditional on the production of scientific proof that this chemical object does not have unacceptable effects on the environment and health, and another science, produced outside of any standard perspective, invites us to question the history of this technical standardization. In the first part, this study focuses on the ideas and standard instruments developed and disseminated since the early 1970s by a major player in the globalization of pesticide regulatory science, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the second part, the author shows that OECD regulatory science has flowed into European law, and that this contributes to ignorance about the harmfulness of pesticides.
The second contribution in this section is by José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez, a historian at the University of Valencia (Spain), entitled “Fighting the Colorado Potato Beetle in Francoist Spain (1939–1953)”9. This text develops a historical and political perspective of the massive introduction of pesticides into Spanish agriculture in the 1940s. Conceived as the preferred means of combating pests (in particular the Colorado beetle), this approach marginalized other methods such as biological control (which was undergoing significant development in the first half of the 20th century). The author explains this by the autarky policies of the Franco government, which developed a set of measures encouraging the use of arsenic pesticides. He highlights the significant role played by agricultural engineers, a professional body that articulated agrarian modernization projects with the policies of the authoritarian regime. Focusing on the province of Burgos, an analysis is made of communication campaigns aimed at overcoming farmers’ resistance. The arrival of DDT, which was authorized and widely used, took place against a backdrop of numerous decrees, resulting in a legal architecture that favored the deployment and use of pesticides, while glossing over the toxic risks for populations and ecosystems.
The third and final part of this book adopts a discursive and communicative perspective, focusing on media productions (particularly the written press), professional productions (technical documents, trade press) and digital productions (comments on social networks). For example, Estera Badau, an associate professor in communication studies, has written a chapter entitled “From Pesticides to Thyroid Diseases: Media Coverage of a Nameless Problem”10. This diachronic study presents the initial results of an ongoing research project (ThyroSIC), aimed at studying the publicization of thyroid disease in France. It specifically focuses on media coverage of the links between pesticides and thyroid disease, based on a corpus of articles published by the daily French newspaper Le Monde. Scientific studies showing that certain pesticides are endocrine disruptors have been covered by the media, with these same studies also being taken up by public institutions. The analysis shows a two-phase media coverage: before 2013, a few published articles mainly reported on the link between pesticide use and various types of cancer, including thyroid cancer. After 2013, scientific knowledge on endocrine disruptors became more numerous and precise, revealing numerous ramifications, from the environment to food and health.
The penultimate chapter of this book is written by Antoine Blanchard, a graduate agronomist with a master’s degree in the social studies of science and technology. It is entitled “Discursive Strategies of a Sociotechnical Network: The Case of Plant Resistance Inducers (PRIs)”11, and its main question concerns the way in which plant resistance inducers have served the promises of this new phytosanitary paradigm over a decade (1997–2007), while setting them apart from existing solutions. The French acronym “SDN” is analyzed using both a quantitative approach to content analysis and a qualitative approach drawn from linguistics. The author proposes a review of the discursive strategy of SDNs in five singular communicative spaces (scientific literature, technical and commercial documentation, the trade press, the general public press, and the scientific and technical popularization press). He then compares this discursive strategy with that of biopesticides. His work brings to light a kaleidoscopic image of the SDN sociotechnical network, around a common repertoire, creating an “SDN world” in which we are called to come and live.
Proposed by Albin Wagener, a discourse analyst and specialist in environmental issues, the final text in this collective work is entitled “Circulation of Discourses and Counter-discourses about Pesticides on Social Networks”12. The author points out that for several decades now, the dangerousness of pesticides has been making media-influenced incursions into public debate. Underpinned by a large number of studies and legal positions, the complexity of the subject has led to a massive production of discourse and counter-discourse. He points out that discourses and counter-discourses about pesticides vary, because from neonicotinoids to glyphosate, public media controversies have given rise to a wide variety of narratives. His chapter focuses on analyzing the conversations taking place in comments on social networks. To this end, the author has built up a digital corpus from social networks in order to access representations within discourses, taking into account the specificities of environmental and ecology-related discourses. This corpus is analyzed using lexicometric analysis, with a view to providing a topography of representations and their positioning in relation to pesticide-related social issues.
References
Allard-Huver, F. (2021). Ce que les SIC font aux controverses environnementales, ce que les controverses environnementales font aux SIC.
Revue française des sciences de l’information et de la communication
, 21. doi: 10.4000/rfsic.10215.
Aulagnier, A. and Goulet, F. (2017). Des technologies controversées et de leurs alternatives. Le cas des pesticides agricoles en France.
