Here's a quote from an article I'm reading that reminds me
of the current "controversy" over the Human Genome Diversity
Project:
"The land, the forests, the rivers, the oceans, the
atmosphere have all been colonized, eroded and polluted.
Capital now has to look for new colonies to invade and
exploit for its further cumulation. These new colonies are,
in my view, the interior spaces of the bodies of women,
plants and animals.
"The invasion and takeover of land as colonies was made
possible through the technology of the gunboat; the invasion
and takeover of the life of organisms as the new colonies
are made possible through the technology of genetic
engineering.
"Biotechnology, as the handmaiden of capital in the post-
industrial era, makes it possible to colonize and control
that which is autonomous, free and self-regenerative.
Through reductionist science, capital goes where it has
never been before."
Written by Vandana Shiva, director of the Research
Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource
Policy at Dehradun, India. Her article "The Seed and the
Earth: Biotechnology and the Colonization of Regeneration"
appears in the Sept. 1993 issue of *Ecodecision*.
Any comments?
Susan