Waikato Management School Research Seminar Series

1. Waikato Management School Research Seminar Series Who decides New Zealand’s biotechnology future? Professor Judy Motion and Professor Shirley Leitch

2. Project objectives • Examine the socio-economic and cultural impacts of medical, food and fibre-related biotechnology developments in New Zealand: 1) Business perspectives - an analysis of biotechnology organisations and their stakeholders; 2) Social, cultural and religious/spiritual dimensions of biotechnology – an analysis of advocacy groups, community organisations, and their stakeholders. 3)Develop dialogue and decision-making frameworks.

3. Team members • Professor Judy Motion, Principal Investigator, WMS • Professor Shirley Leitch, PVC, University of Waikato • Dr Jarrod Harr, WMS • Associate Professor Sally Davenport, Victoria University • Professor Bill Doolin, AUT • Dr Jo Gamble, HortResearch • Dr Fiona Te Momo, Massey University

4. Sustainable Ambiguity • Professor Shirley Leitch

5. It is about sustainability, in New Zealand and around the world. Different groups have different views of what sustainability is. … Essentially the debate has been about how one group believes that sustainability is through using GM technologies. And others think it is through not relying on GM technologies to become sustainable. But there is a lot of cross over on that. (Community)” “The word sustainable has about as many meanings are there are people” (Policy Manager) Sustainable Biotechnology?

6. Sustainable development • Green business & triple bottom line • Long-lasting or enduring • ‘Imperative’ to gain clarity regarding this important environmental concept, in order to make it actionable! (AoM Symposium, 2004) Sustainable What?

7. Clarity is desirable in communication??? • Strategic Ambiguity • - Promotes ‘unified diversity’ • - Preserves privileged positions • - Allows deniability • - Facilitates change • (Eisenberg, 1984) Ambiguity & Communication

8. Facilitates creative responses • (Davenport & Leitch 2005) Strategic Ambiguity & Stakeholders

9. “MAF's view is that we support organics as one of the paths towards sustainability. …. While organics is a fine ideal, my personal view is that one of its major values is that it challenges conventional farmers to think whether or not they need to use chemical interventions. It doesn't mean they shouldn't but it makes them think about it, because quite a lot of the organic area is based on unsustainable practices.” (Manager 2) MAF = Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry Organic = is/is not sustainable Sustainable Ambiguity

10. “What you want is a system that enables those crops to be grown when a farmer wishes to grow them which is a commercially driven decision which is the way in which our primary industries are oriented. That's why they are so successful. But that growing that crop must happen in an environment where it allows the coexistence of other farming systems beside it. My view is if we're able to do it with organics and some of the structures that apply to that, there is no reason why we can't do it with GM crops.” (MAF Manager ) 3-way co-existence = sustainable Sustainable Ambiguity

11. “What we want to invest in is to achieve outcomes, research that will support outcomes at least for improved and sustainable wealth and well being for New Zealand. Now how do you achieve that? So it might be through a new technology, could lead to improved productivity.” (Research Manager ) Improved productivity & well-being = sustainable Sustainable Ambiguity

12. “Sustainability is defined in all manner of different means. A strong sustainability definition would require ecological accounting, that one has ecological sustainability, a broader definition would also encompass the economically sustainable…. At the end of the day you can have the most vibrant economy, the most wonderfully booming growth rates and everything else but if there’s a collapse of ecosystem services, it goes kaput. The economy is ultimately dependent on the ecology. If … at some point, ecosystem services break down, you haven’t got an economy.” (Environmental Economist ) Accounting for/modelling everything = sustainable Sustainable Ambiguity

13. “For me it comes down to individual values. What do we value? And I value the whole ecosystem. I value research that supports sustainability, that supports ecosystem enhancement and biotech research doesn’t do that. I think we know how the world is ordered environmentally in terms of how the environment works and how cultures work and my value system doesn’t put me in the position where I want to be a player in that. I don’t like what it stands for and I think lots of other Maori people who I work with as well don’t like what biotech stands for.” (Maori Academic ) Supporting cultural/individual values = sustainable Sustainable Ambiguity

14. “The word sustainable has an assumed number of meanings. Paramount for us is to ensure that the kinds of assumptions and framings of understandings and questions and knowledges, includes at the table the cultural, spiritual and ethical dimensions of biotechnology…. Sustainable is very much, at least from where I sit, being able to question the ends, not just the means. And having public involvement in shaping some of those ends.” (Bioethics Policy Manager ) Societal values/’public good’ = sustainable Sustainable Ambiguity

15. “So obviously there are different motivations around that draw us into different sets of conclusions or approaches to something like sustainability and sustainable. It’s certainly a healthy thing in the sense that if there was a single notion of sustainable it would probably be determined by the prevailing powers and then that would be unhealthy just as lots of other concepts which have become sort of naturalised, have become so because of the ability of certain systemic things to establish them as if they were natural.” (Bioethics Policy Manager ) Ambiguity is good Sustainable Ambiguity

16. Ambiguity tolerated in order to: • Promote negotiation between diverse stakeholders Preserve multiple viewpoints (inside) in the debate • Many versions co-exist, economic version not necessarily paramount • Avoid any labelling of the ‘unsustainable’ • Clarity = excludes and disables • Ambiguity = includes and enables Sustainable Ambiguity

17. What Makes a Stakeholder Act?

18. Stakeholder theory tends to be normative/instrumental – who are they, what do they want? • Develop strategies to respond/control (or ignore) • Focus on focal organization and dyadic relationship • Tends to be static – assumes steady state relationship, assumes stable issue… • What about dynamic aspects? • How and why does salience vary? • What makes a stakeholder act? Why Add the Issue?

19. Public sector organisation involved in biotech • Negative Ministerial review of stakeholder relations • Poor public attendance at post-review road shows Bioreg

20. “Even-handedness”, the CEO insists, “is part of the culture of Bioreg” • Stakeholders: applicants & submitters on GM applications • Process oriented • Stakeholder strategies - keep informed, consult widely, listen to all views, treat all fairly • Seen as ‘pro-approval’, ‘scientific’ cf. ‘cultural’/’alternative’ • Bias against submitters = ‘the enemy’ Bioreg & Stakeholder Mobilization

22. Two different types of stakeholder action… • Interest-based Action: assumed that rational choice – economic motives • But what about lost causes? • Identity-based Action: derived from propositions about self, verified or falsified by experience • Expression of identity – behavioral motives • Threshold for action lower than for interest-based action • ‘Act of acting’ is main objective Stakeholder Mobilization – Interest & Identity (Rowley & Moldoveanu, AMR, 1997)

23. Research organizations • Biotechnology companies • Organic Farmers Interest-based actors

24. Cultural • Religious • Ethical • Spiritual Identity-based actors

25. 1. Stakeholder mobilization occurs in response to an issue that has arisen in the relationship with the focal organization. • 2. Issues may have interest-based and/or identity-based impacts on stakeholders. Adding the Impact of the Issue

26. High Impact on Interest Issue has…. Interest-based Action Interest & Identity- based Action Low Impact on Identity High Impact on Identity Identity-based Action Inaction Low Impact on Interest Adding the Impact of the Issue

27. GM is a good way to reduce humans’ impact on the environment by increasing yields of key food crops, thus reducing the amount of land required and freeing it up for forests. • We’ve got to take a strategic point of view on that and we’ve got to be informed by knowledge not by emotion. • GM Researchers/Applicants Issue Impacts on Stakeholder Interests

28. [I] fell in love with the clean, green image and though it was a good place for children to grow up. [New Zealand] is like a little paradise, it is safe and relatively egalitarian. I don’t think it is known yet if GE is safe or not. [It] should not be released until we know the effects on both children and adults. • The mixing of human and animal DNA is culturally and spiritually offensive to most New Zealanders. • Submitters – NGOs, MADGE, ‘the public’ Issue Impacts on Stakeholder Identity

29. Maori disagree with anything which tampers with the food chain, and with the knowledge of what went into the food chain. Maori have a different relationship with the environment than a lot of other people. GE poses a risk to tribal gathering grounds…We have given a great deal of consideration to this issue and oppose the granting of any applications for GMO development until we have the opportunity to determine the impact such developments would have on our values and social and cultural well-being. Submitters – Maori iwi, Maori Landowners Issue Impacts on Interest & Identity

30. They will always try to denigrate organics – I always say YES we are a bunch of long-haired hippy dope-smoking-on-the-Corromandel [farmers] AND the suit wearing board members. It is becoming accepted that we are a powerhouse and that organics is not going to go away. Submitters – Organic Farmers Issue Impacts on Interest & Identity

31. Science is actually an international system and I don't use the word culture –[it] has to be regarded as an efficient form of communication rather than a cultural activity… If it's a cultural activity in the same way that ethnic groups are of different cultures, then science should vary with the ethnic group but it doesn't, it's a bottom line. What is the bottom line - reproducible observation! GE Researchers/Applicants – after submissions Impact of Issue can Change

32. 3a When interest-based stakeholders feel their interests are being threatened by the actions of identity-based stakeholders in response to an issue, they may also mobilize as identity-based stakeholders. • 3b When inactive stakeholders stimulated to respond to/are impacted by an issue, they are likely to mobilize with identity-based action than with interest-based action. Impact of Issue can Change

33. Impact of Issue Can Change Over Time High Impact on Interest Issue has…. Interest & Identity- based Action Interest-based Action 3a Low Impact on Identity High Impact on Identity 3b Identity-based Action Inaction Low Impact on Interest Issue-Impact-Action model

34. Action Reflects Impact: Response Should too… High Impact on Interest Issue has…. Collaborate Collaborate & Assure Low Impact on Identity High Impact on Identity (Re-) Assurance Monitor Low Impact on Interest Issue-Impact-Action model

35. Key issue: How to influence the public and decision makers • Credibility contests • Publicity stunts or epistemic authority Media relations

36. Ingham Farm Protest

37. MAdGE protest in Parliament

38. MAdGE Protest at Woolworth

39. Steve Abel and others at press conference

40. Media strategies • Media strategies – carefully crafted key messages • Scientific knowledge versus critical knowledge • Agenda setting and framing

41. Empiricist repertoire: emphasises the objectivity of facts derived through scientific method Contingent repertoire: acknowledges that the application of scientific methods or knowledge may be socially contingent Scientists’ ways of talking

42. Fact versus emotion I think part of the problem with the debate is that people see the idea of … use the classic example of the frog gene and potatoes, and they just think, “Yuck.” And because they think it's yuck they think, “That must be unsafe.” And it's confused those two things – and there's a clear distinction. Just because it might seem unethical does not mean it's unsafe… What was frustrating was the way that those statements were continually coming out by a certain group of people, when we'd actually spent a long time talking to them individually that this was not the case. But they would keep repeating it and repeating in the media…It was creating a public emotion that they wanted to create and that was what was most frustrating.

43. Risk MAdGE …Their point of view was that unless we can prove without any doubt that there's no risk, then we shouldn’t do it. And of course such a position you can never fulfil. Our world is based on change and we don't have any control over the changes that happen. There’s always an element of risk … I come from a completely different perspective. For example, looking at a gene not as something as part of a human, but a chemical molecule that stores a piece of information. It’s pretty much identical to the same piece that’s existing in a cow. And then using that for achieving a certain outcome that benefits humans.

45. Talking to the public You have got to, for most public groups, really dilute down the science… and for a long time I found that very, very hard, because as a scientist you're always taught to work with probabilities and there’s always the ifs and the buts. And if you start going into a public talk and give all the ifs and buts you lose people. And you've got to be prepared in this debate, in all honesty, just to bite your tongue and tell a few white lies. And you've got to be prepared to make those general statements that you know yourself are not always true and you know, yeah strictly true, but there are exceptions and you can't, you mustn’t start to get into them in the debate. If someone asks a question you're going to give an answer but you've just got to be prepared as I said to almost tell some white lies in those public discussions.

46. Positioning activists I think they should see some cancer patients and realize the reality of cancer and the problems of treating people … We have progressed in treating cancer and people are actually doing better and feeling better with the current treatments… I had a bunch of people come to my house once to protest about animal research … I mean, they were practically all quite young, all younger than 18, and a lot of them were young women. And I said, “Well, what would you do if your best friend had cancer?” And they said, “Well, send him to a clinic in Mexico”, which I thought was interesting … It would have been alternative [medicine], but then they had enough money to think that sending someone to Mexico was something anybody should be able to do. I think they just weren’t old enough to have experienced their friends dying of cancer. I am sure as that happens they tend to fade away from that movement – because you suddenly realise the other aspect. So, I think a lot of it is probably sustained by people who really haven’t had much experience with cancer.

47. Engagement challenges I chose to go and talk to a Greenpeace stall in Wellington who were handing out leaflets that were based on outdated arguments, the tryptophan story and all the Monarch butterfly and all the stuff that has since been discredited or not attributed to the GM aspect of the concern. And … I was having a very nice conversation with the woman at the desk, and then some guy came out from the side and decided he wanted to smack me. He didn’t, but it was quite fortunate because I was quite considerably larger than him. And I just turned round and said, “Well, if that’s the level of your conversation and your argument, there’s no point in carrying on is there?

48. Engaging with activists A: There were good and bad sequelae [chuckle from B] of that particular appearance [on TV]. B and I got sent a pair of knitted woolly hats by a delightful lady in … B: Yes, that’s right, and I got a bomb threat at midnight as well, didn’t I? ... I rang the Police at midnight and they came because [the caller] said it was outside the Cancer Society. So I told them and the Police sort of nosed around there. A: And they went and had a look. B: But they didn’t find this one. A: And I came into work on the Saturday morning and found a fake bomb outside the front door…. I: But why …? B: Because we announced, I think we probably mentioned the word mice somewhere…. It was the animal activists that did it. A: The Police were commendably nonchalant about it. I phoned the Police, they turned up, looked at it, and it was a box with wires going in and out, and one of them said, “Oh, this is a fake,” he said, and pulled all the wires out [laughter] … He did say, “You go over there, but it’s a fake and I’m going to pull the wires out.” And so I went over there, and he did. I: So what were the woolly hats for? B: Something to protect us from the bomb! [laughter]. A: Just a gesture from somebody. My wife still wears it.

49. Fact based information tactics prevail but discursive shift to contingent repertoire Clash of scientific and promotional values Science as politics, culture and promotion Politics calls upon science to tackle complex problems but that in turn undermines the position of science Discourse transformation

50. Public understandings of biotechnology Changing something from its original state and modifying it to something else. A chemical process It’s designing nature for a better cause