Political Ecology and the Geography of Science: Lesosady, Lysenkoism, and Soviet Science in Kyrgyzstan's Walnut–Fruit Forest
2014; American Association of Geographers; Volume: 104; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00045608.2014.941733
ISSN1467-8306
Autores Tópico(s)Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
ResumoAbstractAs part of a growing engagement with science studies, political ecologists have worked to theorize environmental science. They have situated science by juxtaposing it with other types of knowledge and have attended not only to science's application but also to its production and circulation. Despite these efforts, science is portrayed in most political ecology as brought to the field site already finished, rather than constructed there through embodied practices designed for use in live scientific debates. I argue that scientists doing science transform the sites in which they work, that political ecologists have not adequately theorized field-based examples of this process, and that help can be found in the geography of science. To this end, I present a historical geography of the Lysenkoist and field-based heredity science that informed a program of forest modification in Soviet Central Asia in the mid-twentieth century. This program, which used horticultural techniques to construct forest-orchards (lesosady) in the walnut–fruit forests of Soviet Kirgizia, entered the landscape into scientific controversies, with ramifications for human–forest interactions in Kyrgyzstan today. Field sciences, like Lysenkoist heredity, have geographies that immerse them in and transform the world. By telling them, political ecologists can better illuminate where and how the doing of science has shaped encounters between people and their environments.政治生态学者作为逐渐发展中的涉入科学研究的一分子, 已着手对环境科学进行理论化。他们透过将科学与其它知识类型併置来置放科学, 并且不仅关照科学的应用, 更关照科学的生产与流通。儘管有着上述成就, 在多数的政治生态学中, 科学仍然被描绘成完臻后才被引入田野, 而非于真实的科学辩论中, 在田野透过身体化的实践建构以运用之。我主张, 从事科学研究的科学家改变了他们的工作田野, 但政治生态学者却尚未充分理论化这个过程中根据田野的经验, 而科学地理学则可对此进行协助。为此, 我将呈现李森科主义 (Lysenkoist) 的历史地理学, 以及二十世纪中期贯穿前苏联中亚细亚一个森林改造计画的以田野为基础的遗传科学。此一计画运用园艺技术, 在前苏联统治下的吉尔吉斯核桃果森林中建造森林果园 (lesosady), 并进入成为科学争议的景观, 且对当代吉尔吉斯中的人类—森林互动带来后果。田野科学, 如同李森科的遗传研究, 具有将其沉浸于世界、并改变世界的地理。藉由诉说这些田野科学的地理, 政治生态学者得以更佳地描绘出, 从事科学于何处、如何能够形塑人们及环境间的交汇。Como parte de su creciente compromiso con estudios de la ciencia, los ecólogos políticos se han empeñado en teorizar la ciencia ambiental. Ellos han posicionado la ciencia al lado de otros tipos de conocimiento y le han prestado atención no solo a sus aplicaciones sino también a su producción y circulación. Pese a estos esfuerzos, en la mayor parte de la ecología política la ciencia se visualiza como si se la trajera al sitio del campo ya terminado, más que construida allí por medio de prácticas incorporadas que han sido diseñadas para usarlas en debates científicos en vivo. Arguyo que los científicos que hacen ciencia transforman los sitios donde ellos laboran, que los ecólogos políticos no han teorizado adecuadamente ejemplos de campo de este proceso y que se puede encontrar ayuda en la geografía de la ciencia. Para este propósito, presento una geografía histórica de la ciencia de la herencia lysenkoista basada en campo, la cual sustentó un programa de modificación del bosque en el Asia Central soviética de mediados del siglo XX. Tal programa, que utilizó técnicas hortícolas para crear huertas forestales (lesosady) en los bosques de nueces de la Kirguizia soviética, incorporó el paisaje en las controversias científicas, con ramificaciones para interacciones hombre-bosque en el actual Kirguistán. Las ciencias del campo, como la de la herencia lysenkoista, tienen geografías que las sumergen en el mundo y lo transforman. Al revelar su naturaleza, los ecólogos políticos pueden iluminar mejor dónde y cómo el hacer ciencia ha dado forma a los encuentros entre la gente y sus entornos.Key Words: Central Asiageography of sciencegraftingpolitical ecologyscience studies.关键词: 中亚细亚科学地理嫁接政治生态学科学研究。Palabras clave: Asia Centralgeografía de la cienciainjertarecología políticaestudios de la ciencia. Notes1The Russian word lesosad is a concatenation of the words for forest (les) and garden or orchard (sad).2This largely American conversation should be distinguished from the largely British one around posthumanism within the new relational geography, which has also theorized science but less for political ecology than for biogeography (J. Lorimer Citation2008), conservation (Hinchliffe Citation2008), or cultural geography (Whatmore Citation2006). That community has occasionally engaged the geography of science (e.g., Greenhough Citation2012), although its Deleuzian commitments contrast with the narrative approach that geographers of science favor.3It is beyond the scope of this article to explore how this proletarian science foreshadows later calls for participation in science or how the Soviet philosophy of science out of which it emerged (e.g., Bukharin Citation1931) informed later movements toward radical science and political ecology. Both topics merit further research.4Marxist interpreters have taken Lysenkoism more seriously, although this initially meant rehabilitating its Stalinist heritage rather than reevaluating its scientific claims (Lewontin and Levins Citation1976; Lecourt Citation1977). It is only with Roll-Hansen's work on Lysenkoism and Soviet science policy that Lysenkoism has reemerged as a science, politicized but not thereby reduced to pseudoscience or nonscience (Roll-Hansen Citation2005; see also Brain Citation2011; DeJong-Lambert Citation2012).5I thank Bruce Braun and three anonymous reviewers for helping me clarify this point.6Lysenko's position parallels recent findings in epigenetics that body–environment interactions can have hereditary effects (Guthman and Mansfield Citation2013). In fact, the strict geneticism that Lysenko opposed and that reached its height in mid-twentieth-century molecular biology's "central dogma" little resembles today's molecular biology, with its armies of interacting genetic and nongenetic factors. Although epigenetics has complicated the modern synthesis and allowed Lamarck's reappraisal (Jablonka and Lamb Citation1995; Koonin and Wolf Citation2009), Lysenko's claims for the inheritance of acquired characteristics go far beyond Lamarck's and find no support in the carefully delimited claims of epigenetics.
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