Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cultural Meanings and Acceptance of Genetically Modified Food and Crop Technology in the United States and New Zealand

在这个项目中，研究生研究员Tiffany Rinne将研究美国和新西兰公众对转基因食品的接受或拒绝。Rinne借鉴了当前生态学、医学和认知人类学中的争论和方法，来考虑对生物技术进步的普遍理解是如何支撑和塑造更广泛的公众接受或拒绝的。Rinne特别提到了为什么转基因食品技术在一些工业化国家(如美国)受到欢迎，而在另一些国家(如新西兰)却引起了严重的关注甚至厌恶。该项目将在两个地点的实地研究中使用基于经验的认知方法，直接考察这一种形式的生物技术所赋予的文化意义，以及这些意义如何与截然不同的国家反应相关。据推测，对转基因作物技术反应的差异可以与赋予健康和环境(心理结构)的层面文化意义的差异以及媒体报道(社会结构)的差异相关。通过这样的项目，人类学家可以在理解技术接受方面发挥关键作用，鉴于新技术的大规模生产和全球分布，技术接受是一项日益重要的努力。以前关于转基因食品技术的研究使受访者脱离了社会背景，也没有强调转基因技术接受的文化中介性质。通过更充分地了解影响转基因辩论的文化因素，将更好地了解生物技术国际冲突的根源，而这些冲突可能反过来影响国际转基因政策。

In this project, graduate student researcher Tiffany Rinne, will study public acceptance or rejection of genetically modified (GM) foods in the United States and New Zealand. Rinne draws from current debates and approaches in ecological, medical, and cognitive anthropology to consider how lay understandings of biotechnological advances underlie and shape their broader public acceptance or rejection. Rinne specifically addresses why GM food technology is embraced in some industrialized nations (such as the United States) while it provokes serious concern and even aversion in others (such as New Zealand). This project will use empirically grounded cognitive approaches, in field research in both sites, to look directly at the cultural meanings afforded this one form of biotechnology, and how these meanings relate to very different national responses. It is postulated that differences in reaction to GM crop technology can be correlated to differences in the lay cultural meanings afforded health and the environment (mental constructs) as well as to differences in media coverage (social constructs). Anthropologists, through projects such as this, can play a pivotal role in understanding technological acceptance, an increasingly important endeavor given the mass production and global distribution of new technologies. Previous studies on GM food technology have taken the respondents out of social context and have not emphasized the culturally mediated nature of GM technology acceptance. By gaining a fuller understanding of the cultural elements influencing the GM debate, a greater understanding of the roots of international conflict over biotechnology will be garnered which may in turn influence international GM policies.