Dissertation Research: French Agricultural Biotechnology: Divergent Framings of Risk Among Scientists, Farmers and Consumers

本论文项目通过考察行为者将风险认知转化为正式的风险相关政策的象征文化和制度文化，来考察专家和非专家的风险框架实践。该项目将生物技术农业设想为一种社会技术系统，将通过三个具体地点的案例研究，将专家监管机构中风险评估过程的发展与非专家新出现的风险认知做法进行比较。这项研究旨在了解法国科学家、农民和消费者如何感知和评估风险，调查群体内部和群体之间不同的风险框架在多大程度上反映了潜在的文化担忧。本文认为，风险构建既受到复杂文化过程的制约，又受到复杂文化过程的影响，本文对专家和非专家的风险构建过程进行了问题化和比较，以说明参与构建法国转基因作物监管辩论的三个关键机构的知识流动和组织结构。一般的方法将是追踪一种特定的转基因植物品种从引入法国监管机构到整个社会的过程。本研究将利用人种学方法、档案和当前印刷媒体的批判性阅读战略以及比较分析，调查有关风险的知识在专家和非专家机构内部和之间产生和流动的过程。这样的研究将使人们能够审视塑造法国生物技术风险讨论的文化制约因素。

This dissertation project examines the risk framing practices of experts and non-experts by examining the symbolic and institutional cultures in which actors translate perceptions of risk into formal risk-related policy. Conceiving of biotechnological agriculture as a sociotechnical system, the project will compare the development of the process of risk assessment in an expert regulatory apparatus with the emerging risk perception practices of non-experts through three site-specific case studies. The study seeks to understand how French scientists, farmers, and consumers perceive and assess risk, investigating the extent to which divergent framings of risk within and between groups reflect underlying cultural concerns. Arguing that risk construction is both constrained and shaped by complex cultural processes, this dissertation problematizes and compares the risk framing process of experts and non-experts to illustrate the knowledge flows and organizational structure of three key institutions engaged in framing the popular debate concerning the regulation of genetically modified crops in France. The general approach will be to trace the path of one particular transgenic plant variety as it moves from its introduction into French regulatory apparatuses into the wider society as a whole. Utilizing ethnographic methods, critical reading strategies of archival and current print media, and comparative analysis, the study will investigate the processes by which knowledge regarding risk in generated and flows within and between expert and non-expert institutions. Such research will enable an examination into the cultural constraints that shape the French discussion of biotechnological risk.