Women, food and biopolitics: gender debates for southern Africa - Lliane Loots

Biopolitics, or to decode the term, the politics around contemporary biology's genetic manipulation/modification of life forms (human, animal and plant), is fast becming the key global issue for the 21st century. The debates around biopolitics feeed not only into ethics of science to 'fix' the world but key into debates around human rights, food security and sovereignty. Indigenous knowledge, legal policy, trade, education, health, sexuality and reproductive rights and, of course, the relationship of the South to the North in debates around globalisation and the fair distribution of resources. All these issues are gendered and carry huge consequences for both women and men of the South. The primary intention of this article is to offer a gendered reading of some of the key issues surrounding biopolitical debates around food and genetic manipulation/modification of life forms and how this has already, and will continue to, profoundly impact on the lives of women and men in the South.
From: Agenda 73 (2007)