| In a 2012 interview, Bill Moyers described Vandana Shiva as a “rock star” for her work against GMO’s. I would use a similar description. Again for my Environmental Communication class (COMM428), I was given the task to cover an environmental topic with strong elements of environmental communication and the public sphere. Having studied the work of Dr. Vendana Shiva earlier in the semester, I wanted to expand on her focus in eco-activism, preserving local farming globally, stopping the use of chemicals, GMO’s, and intellectual property in farming, and eco-feminism. Yes, there’s eco-feminism which I found to be very exciting. This is my examination of Vandana Shiva’s work as an example of effective environmental communication in the public sphere. |
At the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, Dr. Shiva examined interdisciplinary science, technology, and environmental policy in order to address the threat of biotechnology on biodiversity globally. Dr. Shiva founded the national movement in India named Navdanya in 1991 in order to protect and preserve India’s living resources, especially focusing on native seeds. Biodiversity in her mind represents cultural diversity and preservation along with ethical use of bio-materials and ecofeminism, or the equity of men and women in the production of bio-materials, especially crops. Since the 1990’s, Dr. Shiva has received multiple awards including the Right Livelihood Award (also called the Alternative Nobel Prize) and is on many national and international committees consulting on the use of biodiversity in large-scale farming. You can read more about this in her biography from the Green Interview.
But what does this have to do with environmental communication? A lot, actually. As outlined in our Environmental Communication lectures, there are three elements in the public sphere relating to environmental communication. First, there is the environment. In the case of Dr. Vendana Shiva’s work, that includes the land that farmers develop their crops on as well as the species of crops that she is trying to retain biodiversity in. Leading into the next aspect of the public sphere, certain institutions involved in biodiversity both help and hinder Dr. Shiva’s fight for eco-equality. Certain governments and institutions that Dr. Shiva works with advocate for small farmers and the inclusivity of certain food and cash crop species in order to give power to local communities. |
What made the communities in Dr. Shiva’s work so genuine for me were the women working to feed their families and local communities rather than working for a profit. Like many agricultural communities not adhering to neoliberal economic practices, the communities in Dr. Shiva’s work weren’t advocating for profit. They didn’t need the “progress” Monsanto was advocating for. What they needed was food in their homes and easy ways to make their own food. In the same communities that Monsanto documented utilizing contract farming, there were people losing their livelihoods because they couldn’t fight against GMO’s or ownership of certain strains of crops. I’d suggest watching the video for the full effect.
For this class, we studied concepts such as sustainability and environmental justice. Sustainability advocates for a world in which we can persist with our environmental practices while still building a future world that we can live in. Environmental justice discusses environmental practices in terms of where environmental pollution takes place regionally and how those regions are often subject to economic, racial, and ethic intersections that make it less likely for a community to fight against major health and pollution problems.
For Dr. Shiva, both of these schools of environmental thought influence how she goes about her eco-activism and eco-feminism. Dr. Shiva advocates for women and lower income regions that face large corporations trying to monopolize certain crops for economic gain. But what these communities require according to Dr. Shiva is an economically conservative but socially liberal method of farming and treatment for populations with less agency. The public sphere that Dr. Shiva got involved in is international, crossing cultural and economic boundaries. This is because environmental sustainability and justice are concerned with how we are going to feed a growing population with the eco-materials that we possess. This project was delightful to research and produce video for because it involved local populations and taught me how to fight against neoliberal, globalized economies trying to monopolize certain foods and crops that keep local populations alive. But for Dr. Shiva, I can imagine that the “rock star” of the anti-GMO world won’t be happy until we enter into a totally GMO-free, organic, non-intellectual property-driven food economy. To be honest, I’d be completely fine with that.
Resources
http://www.thegreeninterview.com/bio/vandana-shiva
https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/glp-facts/vandana-shiva/
http://www.navdanya.org/
http://vandanashiva.com/
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/stayingalive.pdf
http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/viewArticle/358/562
On my Environmental Communication video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74WFrHnwfU0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeyTbXkCnBU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTkAfpYeG0k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER5ZZk5atlE