“Activism in paradise”: A critical discourse analysis of a public
Tracking number
relations campaign against genetic engineering.
ICA-15-10063
22
modification technologies be preferred? Scientifically too, this terrain is still contested:
science and technologies related to genetic modification seek legitimation from their
association with corporate businesses and global markets, while the environmental sciences
such as ecology are concerned to protect world biodiversity and indigenous rights to
culturally appropriate agricultural practices.
A number of tensions are still evident in the somewhat paradoxical set of identities for New
Zealand. Firstly, it may be hard for the GE Free coalition to maintain the perception of risk
associated with genetic modification in New Zealand. The activities of the GE Free coalition
and other like-minded interest groups have successfully kept genetic engineering in the
laboratory in New Zealand, kept global businesses such as Monsanto out, and ensured a strict
regulatory framework for research. This very success means that the threat is somewhat
minimized. GE Free will have to work harder and harder to maintain that participation in
genetic engineering is a threat in the absence of visible genetic engineering crises. (Apartheid
practices in South Africa and the memory of the Chernobyl disaster gave the “racism in
sport” and “nuclear-free” campaigns far more dramatic visual images).
Secondly, again paradoxically, the current meaning of "New Zealand is being left behind in
the market place" that is usually associated with arguments for increasing the use of genetic
modification technologies could also shift, given the European and Japanese markets’
rejection of genetic modification products. New Zealand may be left behind in the organic
marketplace.
Convention