Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Anthropological Analysis of Food Security, Biodiversity, and Plant Biotechnology in an Emergent Market

在Vincent Crapanzano博士的指导下，纽约市立大学研究生中心博士候选人Priya Chandrasekaran将研究依靠生物技术集约化农业生产的国家粮食安全战略的动态。历史上，这类政策一方面要应对对作物产量下降和人口增长的担忧，另一方面要应对对植物生物技术和雨养谷物的依赖对生态和生物多样性的影响。这项研究将在喜马拉雅山麓进行，研究小米的生产。考虑到农业部门服务的人口规模巨大，政府20年来参与经济自由化实践，以及最近实施的国家粮食安全战略，这是研究此类问题的理想领域，该战略旨在通过加强高产小米生产来解决人口增长扩大和粮食产量下降的问题。研究人员将分析粮食安全/主权、生物多样性和发展竞争项目的象征、文化和政治经济层面，以及它们如何影响和利用当地知识系统。她的研究结果将为有关粮食、农业和农村生计的地区、国家和跨国辩论提供人种学的、基于案例的理解。该项目将涉及地方、国家和跨国背景下的民族志田野调查。为了收集农业生态劳动力和农民生计的数据，研究人员将在印度北部Uttarakhand的两个不同海拔的村庄花费9个月的时间，在那里她将采用参与式方法进行参与式观察和访谈。为了了解雨养谷物和农民如何与粮食安全/主权、生物多样性和植物生物技术的担忧联系在一起，研究人员将在印度和瑞士的关键研究、政府、企业和非政府组织进行为期4个月的访谈、档案研究和参与者观察。她还将分析新闻文章、出版物和媒体来源，并参加有关粮食、农业、山地生态和妇女参与发展的会议和活动。这项研究将有助于日益增长的关于粮食安全、农业可持续性和发展人类学的人类学辩论。特别是，该项目将帮助科学家更好地了解植物生物技术、食品治理实践和生物多样性的社会和生态影响。这个项目将有助于培养一名多地点人种学方法的研究生。这项研究将扩大对全球粮食系统的认识；对食物、自然和财产权利的冲突；以及经济发展的过程。

CUNY Graduate Center doctoral candidate Priya Chandrasekaran, supervised by Dr. Vincent Crapanzano, will research the dynamics of national food security strategies that rely on biotechnology for intensified agricultural production. Such policies have historically had to contend on the one hand with anxieties about declining crop yields and population growth, and on the other hand with concerns about a reliance on plant biotechnology and rainfed grains impacts ecology and biodiversity. The research will be situated in the Himalayan foothills and on millet production. This is an ideal area for investigating such issues, given the enormous size of the population served by this agricultural sector, the government's 20-year engagement with economic liberalization practices, and the recent implementation of a national food security strategy designed to address the problems of expanding population growth and stifled grain yields through the intensification of high yield millet production. The researcher will analyze the symbolic, cultural, and political economic dimensions of competing projects for food security/sovereignty, biodiversity, and development and how they impact and utilize local knowledge systems. Her findings will contribute an ethnographic, case-based understanding to regional, national, and transnational debates about food, agriculture, and rural livelihoods.The project will involve ethnographic fieldwork across local, national, and transnational settings. To gather data on the agroecological labor and livelihoods of farmers, the researcher will spend 9 months in two villages of differing altitude in Uttarakhand, north India where she will use participatory methods and conduct participant observation and interviews. To understand how rainfed grains and farmers are implicated in concerns about food security/sovereignty, biodiversity, and plant biotechnology, the researcher will conduct interviews, archival research, and participant observation for 4 months at key research, governing, corporate, and NGO sites in India and Switzerland. She will also analyze news articles, publications, and media sources, and attend conferences and events concerning food, agriculture, hill ecologies, and women in development. This research will contribute to growing anthropological debates about food security, sustainability in agriculture, and the anthropology of development. In particular, the project will help scientists better understand the social and ecological implications of plant biotechnology, food governance practices, and biodiversity.This project will contribute to training a graduate student in multi-sited ethnographic methods. The research will expand knowledge of global food systems; conflicts over the right to food, nature, and property; and the process of economic development.