INSTRUMENTOS DE RECOLECCIÓN DE INFORMACIÓN

Political anthropological approaches to power in the west have centred on the way in which political technologies conceal the way in which power operates (Foucault 1991, Shore and Wright 1997). Political problems, it has been pointed out, tend to be recast in the amoral language o f science in order to legitimise them (Abrams m.s.). Central to such recasting is the notion of expertise; expert knowledge provides the classificatory systems, the language and the self-understanding through which the subject is subjugated both externally (through the operation of state institutions) and internally (cf. Rose 1994, 1996). The techniques through which subjects self-regulate are entirely dependent on normalisation legitimised through the powers o f expertise. Medical knowledge, for example, offers an “ontology o f ourselves” (Rose 1994: 69) which is based on anonymous expertise and simultaneously integrated into the living of our everyday lives. Such expertise forms a key resource for modem forms of government in advanced liberal democracies (cf. Rose 2000).

Medical genetic technologies are not treated with the same fear and suspicion as foods, for instance, with (approximately) 55% support for genetic testing and medical use, (approximately 30% against) and 22% in favour of GM foods and 65% against. (Nielsen Monsen and Tennoe 2000: 272)

In Norway we find a contrasting political culture where science and expertise do not have such highly respected and amoral roles. Vike et al (2001) point out that “political life is characterised by the fact that it is not just the ‘best argument’ in abstract sense that comprises the central criteria for relevance, but also questions of personal integrity” (2001: 23). Personal integrity, personal morality, is ensured through “consensus, agreement and loyalty to majority decisions” (ibid.); personal integrity is ensured by believing that all are equal, and that everyone has a right to be heard. As the Jante Law says’ Thou shall not think that thou art better than us. It is this world­ view that the political discourse associates itself with.

The way that the fore-var principle is expressed in relation to genetic technology manages to embed within it these concepts that are so central to political legitimacy. As we saw in Chapter 2 politicians, when challenged on the issue o f genetics, call on the consensus-based nature o f their processes, and the fact that their decisions are based on the fore-var principle. Political discourses and processes in Norway, instead of trying to distance the policy maker from the subjects o f his/her policy in an amoral position founded on scientific legitimacy, seek in fact to draw them closer in an explicit moral bond based on opposition to ‘scientific’ values of anonymous ‘expertise’; a refusal to privilege scientific views over the views o f ‘every-man’. Positioning themselves as equals with the collective illustrates the moral bond between state and the public, illustrates their personal integrity and, hence, their political legitimacy. In short, political legitimacy rests on the assumption of folkelighet, that is, being ‘o f the people’ or ‘like the people’.

Thus successful political reform and policy relies on adherence to strong moral models; if they are ignored, failure will follow (as illustrated by Vike 199?” ^). The

' The Jante law comes from Dano-Norwegian writer Aksel Sandemose’s book (1933) about a town called Jante, dominated by moral laws called Jante Law (see Appendix 5). These laws are considered to dominate Norwegian thinking, both derivatively and jokingly but also quite seriously - thus an

informant tells me; “Everyone says that [the Jante Law] is terrible, but then w e’re just like that. It’s bard to admit” Gopal (m.s.) considers the Jante law to act as a signifier o f doxic knowledge, an observation that my experiences in the field would tend to affirm.

My interpretation of Vike’s material suggests that be shows bow Norwegian policy-makers will fail to find broad approval in Norwegian communities unless they draw the subjects of their policy close in an explicit moral bond. Where policy-makers draw on the ‘expert’ language o f economic strategies and efficiencies they are doomed to fail.

picture is of course complex in practice. The moralities embedded in policies are made selectively explicit and some are emphasised while others are hidden. However the central point - that science does not function as a legitimising factor and that policy in Norway is explicitly and necessarily made moral - is fundamental to grasp. It is not that scientific legitimation does not exist (hence Norwegian Labour party comfort in such s y s t e m s ^ I t is rather that the proper order of things is found in a conflicting field, wherein the most important and basis for truth is the moral one. Scientific or anonymous expert knowledge, so important in for example a British context, is rarely an appropriate legitimising factor for political action, and in the case of genetic technology is likely to be entirely undermining o f political positions.

The disruptive genetic technology and the pacifying fore-var principle

The Norferm/Biosentrum example was held up by biotechnologists as an illustration that the values underlying Norwegian governance are ‘irrational’. Closer examination revealed that there is a conflicting rationality at work, with governance based on moral values that prioritise collectivity over scientific legitimacy. Governance is thus rational in terms of the dominant morality of the traditions of 'det norske hjem \ and strongly normative in character. The fore-var principle revealed the process by which this system is maintained in the face of challenge. Governance appealed to processes of majority rule, on consensus processes which value the opinions o f ‘everybody’ rather than the expertise o f an educated few. In this context genetic technology can be seen to have a particular effect on Norwegian political processes.

Its most important macro-level effect or challenge is to bring into play emergent European and international systems of governance, a fact which Norferm/Biosentrum consciously avail themselves o f in the approvals process (seeking approval through their Danish branch rather than through the Norwegian authorities). These international systems embody unfamiliar and external processes, based on anonymous, expert-led systems o f governance valued by biotechnologists, and not on the explicit moral bond that Norwegian traditions rely on.

' The previous Labour government was less focused on die moral and more at ease with ‘amoral’ ‘neutral’, ‘expert’ approaches associated with British politics (e.g. as presented in Shore and Wright 1997).

Thus genetic technologies demand assessment on the basis o f anonymous systems of expertise, and cannot be ignored. WTO, UN Codex, EU/EEA agreements all include conditions of governance that mean that the Norwegian administrators must deal with genetic technology and cannot simply reject it or ban it. The manner in which they must deal with it is closely specified; they must scientifically prove the danger it poses to health if they want to ban food additives, for example (see e.g. European Parliament and Council Directive EU 95/2/EC). To do so means privileging the anonymous systems o f expertise of modem governance that are so problematic in a Norwegian context. Genetic technologies must be governed in a global style, incorporating hierarchical systems of expertise, status and anonymous system of appraisal. This is dismptive to the face-to-face traditions of Norwegian regulatory practices and traditions o f self-policing that were in place (cf. Elvebakken 1996^^^).

Thus the initial response to genetic technology in the 1980s and the non­ interventionist approach borne out of early experiences with genetics no longer holds. Previously regulation was felt to be unnecessary because conditions were so transparent in Norway, (i.e., everyone knew each other, add tmst formed the basis of policing, and, in fact, genetic technology hardly existed). However, once genetic technology established itself government was obliged to respond to its demands, and these were not insubstantial.

The consequences for government are significant. The Ministry o f Health and Social Affairs stmggle to perform their role in relation to two contradictory systems of legitimacy. On the one hand they are, through the very presence o f genetic technology, enlisted in unfamiliar knowledge systems and asked by the international agreements governing genetic technology to govern on the basis o f expertise and not morality. On the other hand they are acting in relation to a traditional system of political legitimacy grounded on personal integrity displayed through fairness, equality and fore-var.

Norwegian traditions of regulation are based on ''Tilsyn not kontrolF, {tilsyn can be translated as

‘inspection’ or ‘supervision’ while kontroll translates as ‘inspection’ or ‘control’. Informants explained

that the first term is more to do with guidance and advice, whilst the second is associated with policing. Elvebakken (1996) explores how Norwegian traditions of food control are more guidance-oriented, based on equal relations between inspectors and e.g. shop-owners.

The Ministry achieves an uneasy balance between the local and the global. Firstly by rapidly assimilating (Kleppa’s ‘reconsideration’ or clarification, in the parliamentary debate above) the minimum ‘knowledge’ required to judge the situation. Secondly by allowing the genetic technology (briefly) to continue its role in Norferm/Biosentrum’s fermentor, thus treating genetic technology equally with all its subjects according to the dominant value o f fairness^

It becomes clear that the morality embedded in Norwegian legal response to genetic technology, the fairness o f the fore-var principle, is also the most important and facilitating aspect o f the law. It is interestingly similar to Fujimura’s (1992) standardised package. Standardized packages create fuzzy boxes (“grey boxes”) allowing sufficient consensus around an idea or technology in order to allow it to be used. Yet in the meeting between government and biotechnology sector the genetic technology and its associated ideas were not packaged in any satisfactory way, in fact, their scientific tools, the conceptual apparatus surrounding them, posed incessant challenges and operated as an irritant across social domains. Instead, it is the ideal process of consensus that is boxed, and which appears as a standardised package which “used as a dynamic interface to translate interests between social worlds” (Fujimura 1992: 177) Once applied to the technology or sets of ideas, fore-var principle enables political practice to continue despite disagreement about the status of the technology. The reassertion of consensus-based practice strengthens the perceived close moral bond and unity^^^ with civil society, ensuring political legitimacy and splitting science firmly from the social and political spheres. As such the fore-var is also an important entity (perhaps best understood as an immaterial or spiritual index) enrolling its recipients into a relationship that permits compromise between the parties in the technological field. The genetic technology itself in contrast is a ‘technological index’ causing conflict and upsetting traditional processes.

' Melhus’ (forthcoming) work on sperm and ova, and their regulation by law in Norway, suggests interesting comparisons with the morality of equality/fairness. Sperm and ova are regulated differently (sperm can be donated, but ova cannot), yet it is clear from her work that the core value of fairness nevertheless governs their regulation.

Danielsen 1998 illustrates one aspect of this with regard to technologies of reproduction, and the way in which body, sexuality and state were connected through the establishment of new ‘rational’

modrehygienekontor (lit. mother-hygiene-office). Frykman’s work (1993, 1994) similarly illustrates

The chapters so far have considered the biotechnology sector as a whole, as ‘importer’ of genetic technologies into Norwegian manufacturing industry, as well as government-level response to such import and use. We have seen the emergence of key cultural issues; an inside-outside boundary is for example maintained by actors in these parts of the field, founded on keeping not only genetics but also ‘science’ outside the social/political sphere. We have seen how the “purgatorial” aspects of actors engagement with genetic technology have emerged in the form o f sadness, jokes, representations o f money and power, nostalgia for lost identity and so on. The inability of biotechnologists to integrate their technology with market practice marks them out as excluded from 'det norske hjem’; they are unable to serve their country as wealth creators in the way that they wish. These concerns permeate encounters between these two domains.

Bearing in mind the guiding, pre-fieldwork notion o f a technological field (see Introduction), we have begun to sketch how interactions between domains and groups of actors take place around the genetic technology. The most important actors surrounding the dairy company in the following chapter are outlined in bold in the following figure.

RESEARCH • • • • • • • • • • • a R e s e a rc h council •..Business Confederation U niversities & co lleg es • • • • • • • • • • _{' cQtnpanres"}Biotech • G overnm ent GOVERNANCE GM foods/ te c h n iq u e s - R eg u lators • • • • • • • • • • Tine M eierier BIOTECH Capital investors MANUFACTURING Market,. re s e a rc h Environm ental g ro u p s C o nsum er council • Final • c o n s u m e rs CONSUM PTION

The fo llo w in g chapter exa m in es in greater detail the w a y in w h ich a fo od com pany in the dairy industry relates to gen etic tech n ology. It exp lores the p osition o f the tech n o lo gy , the m eanin gs attached to it w ithin the com pan y, and h o w daily practice in the com pan y can on ly be understood in relation to the cultural co n text in w h ich it is em bedded, h istorically as w e ll as in the present. W e can ex am in e in m ore detail the discourses and practices o f p eop le in volved w ith gen etic te ch n o lo g y innovation p rocesses on a practical and everyday lev el, and can m ake clearer the th em es and underlying cultural concerns.

CHAPTER 4 THE DAIRY COMPANY: RESEARCHING GENETICALLY