Unpacking the discursive construction of heirloom seeds: discourses, contests, connections

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Tarih

2024-08-31

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Yayıncı

Bursa Uludağ University

Erişim Hakkı

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Araştırma projeleri

Organizasyon Birimleri

Dergi sayısı

Özet

The 2006 Turkish Seed Law prohibited the selling of uncertified heirloom seeds, triggering heated debates on and around seeds. This paper examines the construction of discourses on heirloom seeds in Türkiye, focusing on the arguments of the key social actors in the field with a view to understand how knowledge production is taking place on seed. Conducting interviews with key state and non-state actors and analyzing their published documents related to heirloom seed through discourse-historical approach, we examined the argumentative perspectives shaping the discourse on seed. The results revealed a discursive dichotomy constructed between "heirloom seed" and "certified hybrid seeds." In particular, built on commercial and food security concerns, the state discourse frames heirloom seeds as low-yield and unable to feed the nation in comparison to certified hybrid seeds, whereas non-state discourse using the perspectives of agrobiodiversity and farmers’ sovereignty construct heirloom seeds with superior features, qualifying them as compatible with biodiversity and the current global and regional economic, environmental and climate problems. The study concludes that different perspectives and interests produced contradictory knowledge about seed (hence food) and caused different realities to exist simultaneously within this knowledge.

Açıklama

Anahtar Kelimeler

Seed, Heirloom seed, Knowledge production, Discursive construction, Discourse-historical approach

Kaynak

International Journal of Social Inquiry

WoS Q Değeri

Scopus Q Değeri

Cilt

17

Sayı

2

Künye

Pandır, M. & Erol, M. (2024). Unpacking the discursive construction of heirloom seeds: discourses, contests, connections. International Journal of Social Inquiry, 17(2), 215-231. doi:https://doi.org/10.37093/ijsi.1481119