imagination and technoscientific innovations: governance of transgenic cows in new zealand

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DOI: 10.1177/0306312710385372 2011 41: 59 originally published online 18 November 2010Social Studies of ScienceBrian P. Bloomfield and Bill Doolin

cows in New ZealandImagination and technoscientific innovations: Governance of transgenic

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Corresponding author:Brian P. Bloomfield, Department of Organisation, Work & Technology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK. Email: [email protected]

Imagination and technoscientific innovations: Governance of transgenic cows in New Zealand

Brian P. BloomfieldLancaster University, UK

Bill DoolinAuckland University of Technology, New Zealand

AbstractThis paper examines a controversial research programme aimed at the production of transgenic cows in New Zealand. It emphasizes the contested representation of the research, in its promotion, in its governance, and in the opposition sparked amongst environmental/anti-genetic modification groups and within the Ma-ori community. The paper contends that the case of New Zealand’s genetically modified cows certainly reveals some unique features of the prevailing economic, geographical and cultural context, but nonetheless has salience for the broader understanding of the promotion, public reception and governance of genetic modification.

Keywordsgenetically modified organisms, governance, innovation, transgenic animals

The development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for release into the environment has sparked a good deal of controversy in many parts of the globe. Despite many shades of opinion, the debate, particularly as narrated in the mass media, is typi-cally seen as a conflict between supporters who envisage a cornucopia of potential ben-efits and opposition groups implacably opposed to what they view as hubristic tampering with nature. Proponents and opponents alike are engaged in a struggle to represent the imagined consequences of technoscientific innovation, and to render dominant their par-ticular view of the future. In the area of food production in particular, genetic modifica-tion (GM) has been met with strong public opposition in a number of countries, the

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resulting furore laying bare the often uneasy relationships between multinational business, science, politics and the public, with the upshot that the legitimacy and governance of technoscience has been thrust firmly into the spotlight (Bauer and Gaskell, 2002; Bonneuil et al., 2008; Klintman, 2002; Levidow, 2001). In this paper we concentrate on a specific aspect of the governance of GM in New Zealand. By governance, we refer to the operation of policy and regulatory frameworks within a more decentralized model of ordering society than traditional government, an operation that involves non-governmental actors and citizens in policy-making and decision-making about technoscience (Felt et al., 2008). While acknowledging the import of literature concerning the formation of the institutions and statutory legal frameworks governing GM in New Zealand (for example, Goven, 2006; Hindmarsh and Du Plessis, 2008; Rogers-Hayden, 2005; Satterfield and Roberts, 2008) our focus is on the enactment of governance in the context of a specific GMO research programme. This is a controversial research programme by AgResearch, a state sponsored Crown Research Institute,1 to produce various genetically modified cows whose milk would match pre-specified requirements in terms of protein content. Most contentious of all, this programme proposed to produce cows genetically engineered to contain a copy of a human gene in order that they could serve as bioreac-tors (AgResearch, 2004) for the production of milk that would include a therapeutic protein potentially useful in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS).

The range of potential benefits outlined by AgResearch – from the economics of cheese production to the prospect for disease treatments – contributed to a certain ambi-guity. Was the research about treating the sick or, as some opposition groups would have it, was it a smokescreen for commercial interests? We contend that the regulatory process governing the project was shaped by a struggle over how to represent the intentions and consequences of the scientific work involved. This struggle was marked not only by pub-lic disputes between pro- and anti-GM factions, but also by some tension in New Zealand’s principal governing authority in the area – the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA);2 for instance, in the deliberations between ERMA and its Māori advisory com-mittee. ERMA had to consider potential risks and benefits of the research, and make decisions on what to allow under what conditions. The struggle also manifested in legal challenges by anti-GM groups to the rulings of the authority. Thus, the conflict over the meaning of transgenic cows was played out in several interrelated spheres, including the official regulatory process, legal challenges to the decisions that emerged, and media reporting, as well as in a number of public demonstrations and protests.

A thread that runs through our analysis concerns the role of imagination – a theme that has informed recent work in the area of the new genetics (Franklin, 2000; van Dijck, 1998), nanotechnology (Macnaghten et al., 2005), software (Mackenzie, 2003) and scien-tific work more generally (Marcus, 1995). Here we consider how imagination plays a role both in the proposal and governance of innovation as well as in the enactment of opposi-tion to it. Informed by Appadurai’s (1996: 7) notion that ‘imagination is today a staging ground for action’, we contend that the prospect of transgenic cows in New Zealand pro-voked a set of imagined futures, some supporting and some contradicting the official pronouncements of AgResearch. For example, amongst the gamut of counter-representations were charges of deception (Green Party, 2001a) and ‘medical fraud’ (Save Animals From Exploitation, 2001). In the glare of the electronic mass media and the Internet these




Bloomfield and Doolin 61

conflicting representations reverberated around the world, articulated further through the voices of assorted proponents of GM, such as scientific pressure groups and support groups for people suffering from MS, as well as various anti-GM factions.

The structure of the rest of the paper is as follows. In the next section we refer to the importance of imagination for understanding innovations, noting the role of images in symbolizing and communicating information about GM (whether pro or con). We then analyse key stages in the official regulation by ERMA of the transgenic cow research, as well as the public responses and the legal challenges to it. This analysis covers the period from the initial proposal to the regulatory authority in late 1998 through October 2003, when a government-imposed moratorium on applications to release GMOs in New Zealand was lifted. It is based on our reading of a wide range of publicly available documents, including the official reports of government agencies, newsletters and press releases of various interest and advocacy groups, and media coverage of the contro-versy. The various texts were assembled in chronological order so as to map out the events surrounding the governance and public responses to AgResearch’s transgenic cow programme, and to juxtapose the associated accounts of these events from various actors. Our aim is not to offer a comprehensive account of all such responses, but rather to detail the specific regulatory steps that accompanied the formal challenges to the legitimacy of the regulation. While doing so, we indicate how the dominant framing of the research in terms of a potential cure for MS was both supported and contested in the wider societal domain. We examine the tactics of one particular faction of the anti-GM movement in New Zealand – Mothers Against Genetic Engineering (MAdGE) – whose efforts generated much publicity in New Zealand and beyond. This group is of particu-lar interest because its protests sought to protect both the boundaries of the (presumed) natural order – one in which bovines and humans exist as separate species – as well as the social identity of its individual members. Specifically, the women of MAdGE pre-sented (imagined) the proposed modification of cows’ milk as a threat to their role as mothers, and in so doing constituted a unique social grouping vis-à-vis the transgenic cow research.

Imagined innovations Planned technoscientific innovations3 are teleological, as future-oriented endeavours they imply movement toward a goal and thereby involve assumptions or expectations about the future (Borup et al., 2006; Hedgecoe and Martin, 2003). This applies both to small scale changes to existing practices as well as to technologically mediated trans-formative changes – for instance, to the global economy, health or social/everyday life. When it comes to thinking about innovation and the future one finds a surfeit of useful terms – expectations, imaginaries, scenarios, visions, and so on – but all of these con-cepts refer to differences between the present or current state of affairs and an imagined future, a ‘present future’ (Luhmann, 1982). The view of the future articulated in the here-and-now is inherently simplified, and talk about that future is imaginary and frequently relies upon imagery to portray and communicate that future state. The term ‘imaginary’ ought not to be understood as an abstraction detached from the present, but rather some-thing generated out of it, including existing cultural material. Imaginaries then, build on





current understandings of society or, for example, the role of technoscience within it, even while seeking to articulate alternatives.

Appeals to the significance of imagination are to be found in a number of studies criti-cal of genetic modification. Though they derive from a variety of theoretical traditions, it is clear that they regard imagery and imagination as vital for understanding new devel-opments and controversies associated with GM. For example, Franklin (2000: 198) uses the term ‘genetic imaginary’ for a ‘realm of imagining the future’ in which ‘the chal-lenges to the imagination beckon irresistibly, uncannily, hopefully, and with enormous popular appeal’. Van Dijck (1998) also adopts the stance that technological innovation and popular responses to it have frequently involved and indeed depended on popular media imagery. Exploring the relationship between genetic images and imagination, she observes that ‘[i]mages and imaginations, like arguments, are mobilized to affect the meaning of genetics. Popular images are sites where simultaneously the control over sci-ence and the control of representation is at stake’ (van Dijck, 1998: 15, emphasis in origi-nal). Thus, one can argue that attempts to introduce GM foods into Europe in the 1990s stalled because of the negative images such as the notion of Frankenfood, which expressed and invigorated public/consumer opinion. What is key to understanding public and media discourse on the new genetics also figures in work on the scientific commu-nity. For example, Fujimura draws on Appadurai’s (1996: 31) approach to ‘imagination as social practice’ and explores two contrasting ‘imaginaries for the biology and culture of the twenty-first century’ of two Japanese scientists (Fujimura, 2003: 177). Taken together, these studies suggest that the role of imagination is pervasive in the realm of genetic modification – whether we consider scientific experts, the media, the public or (as we argue here) regulatory agencies.

GM cows: proposals, reactions and governanceAs the Crown Research Institute responsible for supporting New Zealand’s pastoral and biotechnology sectors, AgResearch has been involved in a long-term research pro-gramme to develop knowledge and capabilities around transgenic livestock and animal cloning. The programme aimed at both increasing scientific understanding in this area and further developing New Zealand’s pastoral industries and international competitive-ness (AgResearch, 1999). In late 1998 AgResearch lodged an application with ERMA to develop and field test (in containment) three herds of up to 30 GM Friesian dairy cows for a period of 5 years (AgResearch, 1999). As the specified regulatory authority govern-ing GMOs in New Zealand, ERMA had the statutory powers under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 to approve, conditionally approve, or disallow AgResearch’s application. The application specified three transgenic modifications. Two involved the addition or deletion of cattle genes: one to increase the content of casein, a protein used in cheese production; and the other to disrupt the operation of a specific gene that produces a milk protein causing lactose allergies. The aim of these modifica-tions was to alter the protein composition of dairy milk to enhance its processing charac-teristics and nutritive value, with the aim of developing functional food products. The third genetic modification involved the insertion of a copy of the human myelin basic protein gene into cattle. When lactating, the resultant dairy cows would secrete the myelin





basic protein in their milk, which could then be extracted and purified. The relatively low-cost generation of large amounts of uncontaminated human myelin basic protein would facilitate testing its efficacy for treating MS – a chronic disease that involves the demyelination of the human central nervous system. The ultimate application of this third genetic modification then, was the development of a drug treatment for MS, rather than the development of functional foods.

Imagined transgenic cattleAgResearch’s application articulated the opportunities opened up by genetic manipula-tion and genetic hybridization. The application’s narrative invoked a set of interlocking understandings that informed not only the official application forms submitted to ERMA, but also the public facing documents and subsequent media reports. First, there was what might be called traditional or conventional scientific discourse in which references to the scientific goals and benefits of the research presented it as ‘basic’, discovery-oriented science or ‘the pursuit of truth’ (Ziman, 1996: 751; see also Cohen et al., 2001). For example, the research was described as providing ‘unique scientific models … for answering fundamental questions’ (AgResearch, 1999: 14). Each of the proposed genetic modifications depended on genetic engineering (the use of specified fragments of recom-binant DNA) and cloning techniques, procedures that the scientists at AgResearch were keen to establish and develop in their laboratories. These procedures can be understood as a means of increasing the scientific capital of this state owned research institution and enhancing the economic strength and capacity of New Zealand agriculture. Second, the creation of the transgenic cows was also envisaged and justified in terms of future eco-nomic benefits allied to the processing characteristics of milk in cheese production (increased casein protein) and nutritional or allergenic improvements to milk for con-sumers (reduced lactose for those suffering from lactose intolerance).

The use of GM cows represents an instance of biopharming, the farming of trans-genic plants and animals to produce pharmaceutical or nutraceutical compounds for use by humans. Part of the attraction of biopharming is its potential to lower production costs and increase the capacity and flexibility of supply of such compounds. In New Zealand, biopharming is often articulated as a strategy for increasing national economic competitiveness through a shift from commodity agriculture to value-added products (Goven et al., 2008; Kaye-Blake et al., 2007). Indeed, the economic benefits of AgResearch’s proposal were framed by the promise of ‘the creation of biotechnology industries’ with ‘a strong NZ specific competitive advantage’ (AgResearch, 2004). Such benefits reference a government agenda to harness publicly funded science as an engine of economic development and national competitiveness, in which scientific knowledge is commodifed as intellectual property, and public scientific institutions pursue commercialized research (Cohen et al., 2001; Hellström and Jacob, 2005). This economic agenda was supported by a report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification (2001), which laid down a regulatory framework for it.4 According to Le Heron (2003: 121) the Royal Commission offered a new vision of the ‘agri-food sec-tor’; a ‘new truth story … about positive global imaginaries with New Zealand making a very particular contribution’.





Third, added to the scientific and economic promises was a powerful therapeutic strand that envisaged that transgenic cows would serve as production vessels for human proteins for the benefit of people suffering from MS. In this particular representation of biopharming, the transgenic cow becomes the ‘medicine cow’ (Väliverronen, 2004) on which are pinned ‘hopes of a ground-breaking medical breakthrough’ (NZ Herald, 2003a).5 Indeed, the imagined therapeutic aspects of the transgenic cows exemplify what Mulkay (1993: 728) describes as the rhetoric of hope: ‘an idealized vision of the relation-ship between science and society which enables its users to project an indefinite range of science-based technologies into a radically simplified future where scientific knowledge necessarily extends control over disease, disability and death’. And as Väliverronen (2004: 368) notes, espousing the goal of conquering chronic diseases ‘is a strong cultural message that can be effectively used in the marketing of many and varied products and techniques’. As events unfolded, the reference to treating MS became a major feature in both scientific and news media reports (a point we elaborate upon below).

The transgenic cow research also drew the attention of anti-GM groups who offered contrary interpretations of the therapeutic promise. In February 1999 the Green Party issued a press release calling for a wider public debate of the ethics of putting human genes into cattle. The Green Party’s co-leader was quoted as claiming that the real objec-tive of this ‘gene tampering’ was not to enhance MS research but to ensure that ‘cow’s milk is more like human breast milk’. She described the possibility of food products based on this modified milk as ‘pollution using human amino-acid sequences’ (Green Party, 1999a).6 A subsequent press release described the genetic engineering and cloning of cows as ‘producing unnatural animals which are treated like machines’ (Green Party, 1999c). Thus the therapeutic promise associated with the AgResearch proposal was forcefully confronted by a counter-narrative couched in terms of boundary transgression (Douglas, 1966). The press release used terms such as ‘tampering’, ‘pollution’ and ‘unnatural’ to decry a moral disorder, and further underscored it with references to the instrumental exploitation of animals (‘treated like machines’).

By the beginning of August 1999, ERMA had completed its evaluation of the AgResearch application. ERMA is required by law to consider benefits and risks of applications to Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, and their traditional rela-tionships with their ancestral lands and other taonga (treasured things). Accordingly, ERMA sought advice from its statutory advisory committee on Māori issues, Ngā Kaihautū Tikanga Taiao. Note that while this committee is authorized to provide advice ‘from a Māori perspective’ (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 2004: 4), it does not represent specific groups of Māori, and indeed its ability to provide an inde-pendent Māori voice has been questioned, particularly by other Māori (Satterfield and Roberts, 2008). Stated in general terms (but see below), the Māori view of nature/culture (what might be termed its cosmology) remains radically different from that of much of the rest of New Zealand society. This difference is sometimes articulated as an opposi-tion between ‘Western reductionist science … [and] Maori and Indigenous worldviews of holistic conceptions of the world where the parts are seen as indivisible from the whole’ (Reynolds, 2007: 60; see also Durie, 2004). Ngā Kaihautū Tikanga Taiao took the view that the proposed research was ‘highly likely to cause cultural offence to Māori’ because of the ‘mixing of genes between species’ (Ngā Kaihautū Tikanga Taiao, 1999).7





ERMA then announced a public hearing on the AgResearch application.8 This led to the proposed research being publicised and reported worldwide as an attempt to find a possible treatment for MS. The AgResearch scientist leading the research programme was quoted as stating that, ‘[in] animals showing clinical signs of the disease recovery can be helped by the ingestion of myelin basic protein’, and that this ‘could potentially prove to be a breakthrough’ (BBC, 1999). This report was reproduced on MS advocacy group websites in New Zealand and beyond. Thus, not only did media reports reinforce the message that the transgenic cow research was about finding treatments for MS, but they also provoked other voices to join the debate, thereby extending the range of allies that AgResearch could enrol. But again, the Green Party issued a press release in August 1999 to protest the therapeutic reading of the research, suggesting that AgResearch had ‘carried out a major public relations exercise’ by emphasizing the potential medical ben-efits instead of the food-oriented aims (Green Party, 1999b).

In November 1999, ERMA released its decision on the AgResearch proposal. It approved the first two modifications (with controls), but postponed the decision on the third modification involving the human gene in lieu of additional information. ERMA emphasized that its approval had been granted for ‘field testing the cattle for scientific purposes’ under strict containment conditions, including the use of subcutaneous micro-chips (electronic tagging) to identify the cattle, concentric two-metre high electronically monitored perimeter fences, and appropriate disposal of any waste products (including carcasses, milk, ova and semen). The carefully stipulated controls9 – which included such details as the tension force to be applied to the wire of the double concentric con-tainment fencing – materially enacted a programme of risk management. But, arguably, the boundaries to be constructed were as much symbolic as they were physical; to con-fine the risky, anomalous creatures in order to protect the order of nature/society/culture beyond the fence from possible contamination (Douglas, 1966).

With regard to the human gene modification, ERMA noted that its decision to seek further information responded to cultural objections and concerns of local Māori (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 1999b). As for the therapeutic claims, ERMA’s evaluation report stated that: ‘no evidence is provided for these proposed bene-fits … . The health benefits are theoretical since transgenic cattle have yet to be devel-oped’ (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 1999c: 37). The report went on to state that even if therapeutic proteins were to be produced, other scientific and regulatory hurdles would have to be successfully negotiated before any actual health benefits ensued. ERMA’s evaluation treated health benefits as part of a broader array of risks and benefits; its report even included summary material on research undertaken elsewhere on multiple sclerosis. However, because ERMA (1999c: 49) deemed therapeutic benefits to be ‘much less certain’ than the expected ‘scientific knowledge gained’, the former did not constitute a factor in its decision. ERMA thus drew a boundary between what it viewed as expect-able (scientific innovation) and what it deemed uncertain (health innovation).

The Life Sciences Network, a pro-GM New Zealand biotechnology research and industry lobby group,10 described ERMA’s deferral of decision on the transgenic cows as ‘a blow to many New Zealanders suffering from multiple sclerosis … . Thousands of New Zealand sufferers of this degenerative condition will continue to have their hopes of a treatment frustrated’ (Life Sciences Network, 1999). However, a brief follow-up added





to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Auckland (New Zealand) website in November 1999, offered a more conservative note. It quoted a university scientist, who explained that the protein extracted from the transgenic cows’ milk would ‘be used as a tool … . It is not a treatment protocol for MS. It is a means to carry out further research … [that] could provide some assistance in terms of modifying MS’ (Multiple Sclerosis Society of Auckland, 1999). This qualification was important because it indicated variation among different constituencies about the scientific facts as regards how close to realization (a ‘future present’ in Luhmann’s (1982) terms) the imagined cure for MS (a ‘present future’) actually was.

After an 8-month delay, in July 2000 ERMA released its decision on the AgResearch application to insert a human gene into cattle, finally approving that part of the original application (along with regulatory controls). In doing so, ERMA noted that this research would use a copy of the human gene in question.11 It stipulated more extensive regula-tory controls than those associated with the earlier AgResearch GM applications, requir-ing AgResearch to maintain a database to track all cattle produced in the research, the disposal of bovine biological material by burial, and the disposal of surplus milk by incineration or spraying onto pasture after treatment to destroy cells present in the milk. The latter two provisions appeared to be a response to consultation with local Māori representatives in an effort to ‘ameliorate’ the effects of the research on Māori cultural values and spiritual beliefs (as well as the potential for contaminants to enter their water systems) when transgenic material would be disposed of on ancestral land. However, ERMA (2000) reported that both AgResearch and the local Māori hapū (sub-tribe) con-cluded that ‘the concerns could not be ameliorated’. The ERMA decision was not unani-mous, as one group member, an expert on Māori culture, voted to decline the application in view of the local Māori spiritual and cultural concerns. A local Māori spokesperson described the decision as ‘like telling tangata whenua that their values mean nothing in their own land’ (Television New Zealand, 2000).12 Accordingly, the potential mixing of human and animal genes could be seen to undermine Māori cultural values and subordi-nate Māori beliefs to (alleged) scientific rationality.13 Of course, ‘Māori culture’ is not a monolithic agent that speaks with one voice, as there is a divergence of beliefs amongst Māori, as well as throughout New Zealand. On the matter of disposing of GM animal carcasses in offal pits, some Māori groups wanted them to be lined – signifying a bound-ary between the transgressive material and the Earth, while others argued against it because it would only delay the integration of the material into Papatuanuku (a deity associated with the Earth and to whom living creatures must return on their death) (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 2002b: 16–17; Ngā Kaihautū Tikanga Taiao, 2002: 2–3, 9). These different views responded to the problem in accordance with different ‘imaginaries’ (Verran, 1998); they were bound up with different ontological presumptions and contrasting knowledge claims about how any offending (polluting) material should be disposed of with respect to the natural order of things. As well as hav-ing implications for the problem of managing GM animal ‘waste’, these subtle ontic and epistemic differences were intertwined with political negotiations between Māori and the national authorities over the rights associated with ancestral lands, and the broader status of Māori culture. In terms of our theoretical concerns, such conflicts illuminate the gov-ernance of GM in New Zealand: the imagined social unity represented by the term





‘Māori culture’ provides a resource for thinking of, and thereby planning for, the organization of consultation required of ERMA under the law; but at the same time the disparity of voices that surfaced signals the limits of the cohesion that it implies.

Illegal organisms In September 2000, Claire Bleakley and other anti-GM campaigners filed an appeal against the recent ERMA decision. Several grounds were cited, the principal one being that ERMA had failed to apply the proper methodology for making its decision. The appeal was heard by two High Court judges in February 2001, and in early May they set aside ERMA’s decision and directed it to reconsider the application; this time, to clearly state the methodological criteria on which it relied.14 The ruling meant that a number of fetal transgenic calves containing the human myelin basic protein gene, which were due to be born in June 2001, became in effect illegal organisms requiring termination under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996. AgResearch immediately sought a stay of the High Court decision that would allow the fetal calves and their sur-rogate cows to remain alive while ERMA reconsidered the application. As one of the ruling judges commented, ‘the embryos are currently in gestation, blissfully unaware of the problems they are generating’ (Taylor, 2001).15

Reaction to the court decision was swift, with the AgResearch CEO reported as saying that ‘there was every indication it [the cow-produced myelin] could have helped MS suf-ferers’, while the Multiple Sclerosis Society president expressed his ‘disappointment at the Court’s decision [as] genetic engineering was one area of research that could result in a cure’ (Taylor, 2001). Other national press coverage featured an ‘outraged’ MS sufferer condemning the decision as ‘very cruel’ (Brown, 2001).16 Although such views might be expected from members of groups with a vested interest in the therapeutic hope fostered by AgResearch, reactions to the decision went well beyond them. Notably, a report car-ried by the pre-eminent scientific publication Nature (2001) ran under the headline: ‘GM cows face slaughter in multiple sclerosis experiment’ (emphasis added). What had been proposed as a programme ‘to develop and evaluate, by field testing in containment, genetically modified dairy cattle’ (AgResearch, 1999), was thus translated into a ‘multi-ple sclerosis experiment’, once again indicating the extent to which the therapeutic inter-pretation (or imaginary) dominated the discussion and reporting of the research. As for the scientists who were leading the transgenic cow research, as outlined in one scientific paper, they saw human myelin basic protein ‘as a model to evaluate the production of a foreign protein in the milk of dairy cattle’ (Laible et al., 2001: 14). It stressed that the protein was subject to ‘several post-translational modifications’, which made it of value in understanding ‘the capability of the mammary gland to process these’ (Laible et al., 2001: 15).17 The article also presented evidence that the protein played an important role in the pathogenesis of MS and was, therefore, of major interest for medical research.

In contrast, the interest group GE [Genetic Engineering] Free NZ suggested that there was ‘as yet no evidence that a cure for multiple sclerosis will result’ (GE Free NZ, 2001). Moreover, one website run by a local university biology professor quoted a medical sci-entist as saying that there was ‘no robust evidence’ that myelin had a medical benefit.18 This prompted the Co-Leader of the Green Party to issue a press release stating that





‘MS sufferers all over New Zealand have been cruelly deceived. I am shocked that sci-entists would use such vulnerable people for their own purposes’ (Green Party, 2001a). A subsequent press release pointed out that AgResearch was not a medical research insti-tution, and stressed that the real intention of the research was to develop a technology to manufacture bulk quantities of proteins mainly for food production (Green Party, 2001b), including ‘designer milks for human consumption’ (Brown, 2001). An animal welfare group, Save Animals From Exploitation, issued a press release that similarly character-ized AgResearch’s claims about the research as ‘medical fraud’, a ‘cruel PR spin’ that gave ‘false hope to MS sufferers’ (Save Animals From Exploitation, 2001).

By the end of May 2001, ERMA released its decision to approve the application for the field-testing of transgenic cattle carrying the human myelin basic protein gene. This came only after a special committee deliberated over the AgResearch application for some 2 weeks. As before, it was a majority decision, with one committee member, an expert on Māori culture, taking an opposing view (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 2001). The Multiple Sclerosis Society was quoted as ‘absolutely delighted …. The research on MS can go forward and I suppose in a broad sense all our members can have hope for the future’ (Television New Zealand, 2001). At this time, AgResearch reported that it had transferred 51 transgenic embryos to 51 cows, but after 45 of the pregnancies failed, only six unborn transgenic calves remained. In early June, the six pregnancies went to term and four calves survived. This low success rate indicated the considerable diffi-culty associated with mastering the complicated techniques involved and was consistent with previous experience in animal cloning research (Wilmut et al., 2000).

The transgenic programme expandedIn December 2001 AgResearch submitted a second application to ERMA to develop transgenic cattle involving a range of mammalian genes, including human. The proposed programme would allow the myelin protein research to continue, as well as to extend ‘to other proteins, targeting a variety of diseases’ (Collins, 2002). Unlike the first applica-tion, which sought permission for three specific genetic modifications, this was a ‘project based application’ (AgResearch, 2001) that was framed in much wider terms so as to avoid the need to seek regulatory approval for every new organism created. The generic nature of the application was described by the Green Party (2002a) as ‘set[ting] the scene for a cow smorgasbord’. The application was publicly notified in January 2002, and ERMA received some 400 submissions. However, in April 2002 AgResearch withdrew its application and ERMA cancelled the scheduled public hearings.

In May 2002, AgResearch submitted a revised application covering ‘the full range of intended development work’ in the production of transgenic animals (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 2002a).19 The application was ‘to develop transgenic cattle that can express functional therapeutic foreign proteins in their milk, and to develop transgenic cattle to study gene function and genetic performance’ (AgResearch, 2002). The research could involve modification of endogenous cattle genes or the insertion of exogenous sheep, goat, deer, mice and (copies of) human genes into cattle genomes. Notably, the application specified its purpose ‘for the development of new knowledge’, but with no mention of the potential to treat human disease. Unlike the 1998 application,





it did not mention ‘field testing’, but only the ‘development’ of new GMOs.20 In other words, the proposed therapeutic benefits that had hitherto been a central feature in AgResearch’s formal documents and public announcements were downplayed in favour of a more traditional emphasis on increasing scientific knowledge. Potential future biop-harmaceutical products were mentioned, but not as the specific purpose of the research.

ERMA decided to publicly notify the application in anticipation of widespread public interest in it. The notification attracted 863 submissions (including many carried over from the previous withdrawn application), of which 856 objected (Beston, 2002b). Interestingly, the local Māori hapū, which had opposed the 1998 AgResearch application because ‘the mixing of bloodlines’ contravened their spiritual and cultural beliefs, decided not to do so in this instance, apparently impressed with AgResearch’s willingness to address their concerns. The Director of their environmental agency was quoted as saying: ‘They’ve come to the party and we’ve had a very good dialogue with them’ (Beston, 2002a). However, ERMA’s Māori advisory committee extended the requirement to con-sult with Māori further than the local hapū, and argued that ‘nation-wide consultation with Māori on the issue of genetic modification’ was needed (Ngā Kaihautū Tikanga Taiao, 2002). The issue of local versus national levels of consultation again indicated the difficulties inherent in the presumption of an undifferentiated Māori community.

The Green Party continued to oppose the proposed research, arguing that the ‘blanket approval’ requested by AgResearch, which did not include details of specific genetic modifications, meant that ERMA was unable to adequately assess the risks involved. It also proposed that this application should be reviewed by the yet-to-be-formed Bioethics Council, a recommendation of the earlier Royal Commission on Genetic Modification (Green Party, 2002b). Other opponents argued similarly, referring to a ‘cocktail of genetic elements’ (Beston, 2002c). In other words, multiple boundary transgressions were seen to be involved.

Despite the ostensible absence of therapeutic benefits from the core of AgResearch’s proposal, this representation of the transgenic research remained firmly in place for other supporters of the work. One of the submissions to ERMA, from the New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders (NZORD), suggested that ‘Transgenic cows offer life-saving medicines sooner …. The application is about more than experimental and basic science. It is also about the reality of production of medicines that are in short supply’ (New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders, 2002b, emphasis added). This submis-sion argued that many rare diseases arise from incorrect protein expression and that reintroduction of the missing protein was a potential treatment or cure. Accordingly, it strongly supported the ‘production of the complex human protein in a form that will be safe and effective as a therapy’ via transgenic mammalian animals (New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders, 2002a). The discourse used by NZORD projected a vision of ‘life-saving medicines’ for people affected by genetic disorders.

On 1 October 2002 ERMA approved the application, with controls and in modified form.21 In doing so, ERMA had accepted the generic nature of the application and its definition as a development rather than a field trial (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 2002c). The AgResearch CEO linked the ‘landmark’ decision to the New Zealand government’s identification of biotechnology as an industry vital for economic growth and ‘growing an innovative New Zealand’ (Television New Zealand, 2002). In





other words the research was linked to the potential for economic growth through innovation, an ideal promoted both by the government and the Royal Commission on GM.22 As regards the question of Māori beliefs, ERMA’s decision on the application concluded that ‘taking into account the need to provide active protection for Māori spir-itual beliefs does not extend to accepting those beliefs as the determinant of whether the research proposed by the applicant should be approved’ (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 2002b: 38). Accordingly, the scientific representation of the transgenic cow research appeared more influential than that of Māori culture and spiritual beliefs.

The issue of health benefits was referred to once again but ERMA reported that these were excluded from consideration in its decision:

The applicant and others made reference to the specific downstream economic and health benefits to be gained from the products that might result from the commercial use or release of the genetically modified cattle. These products might especially include biopharmaceuticals. The Committee did not consider these downstream benefits to be relevant to this application. (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 2002b: 14, emphasis added)

Although ERMA did not cast doubt on the therapeutic claims in setting them to one side it in effect judged that the benefits produced from gains to scientific knowledge were sufficient to outweigh the risks and costs associated with the research.

‘Mothers, milk and cows’Early in the 2003 a newly formed opposition group entered the regulatory fray surround-ing the GM cows. Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment (MAdGE), ‘a group of mothers’ (Collins, 2003), took a High Court action seeking a judicial review of ERMA’s decision on the latest AgResearch genetic modification appli-cation.23 Its legal challenge was on the grounds that:

ERMA had no legal jurisdiction to hear and determine this application. AgResearch sought and got approval to create new organisms without specifying to ERMA the genetic construct of those organisms. The risks and benefits of new organisms cannot be adequately assessed unless each specific organism is first identified. (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003a)

MAdGE also argued that, given ERMA’s apparent lack of expertise to consider the ethical issues involved in the application (Collins, 2003), the Minister for the Environment should have ‘called in’ the application using her powers under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996. By not doing so, the Minister was seen as failing to exer-cise her statutory function. A MAdGE spokesperson, Kate Woodd said: ‘As mothers we have a duty to protect our families and our environment and to ensure that it is sustainable for future generations’ (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003a). MAdGE frontperson, Alannah Currie, was quoted as saying, ‘ERMA has proved to be nothing more than a toothless hound guarding a cowshed full of scientific cowboys and ignorant politicians with more interest in their market share and personal glory than





the health and well being of the country’ (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003c). As Frances Edmond wrote, in an essay entitled ‘Mothers, Milk and Cows: Genetically Engineering the Essence of Woman’:

To permit human genes to be put into cows so that cow’s milk is more like human milk is an affront to both of us. … If women’s essence, their milk, their means of nourishing their young is taken away from them, usurped and commodified, the damage to their life force is unimaginable. (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003f)

Thus, as an anti-GM group, members of MAdGE conveyed a distinctive social identity as mothers and customers: women responsible for nurturing and providing food for their families. This ‘legitimate maternal concern’ for the well-being of their children (Einwohner et al., 2000: 683) provided them with an alternative cultural authority with which to challenge the epistemic authority of science (Gieryn, 1999).24

The Life Sciences Network, the pro-GM lobby group, reacted by saying it was ‘disap-pointed’ that ‘a group of wealthy Auckland mothers’ who did not make a submission to the ERMA public hearings on the AgResearch application was now challenging ‘a sound decision’:

We are sure the mothers of children with cystic fibrosis, with muscular dystrophy and the many other diseases with a basis in gene malfunction will be more than a little distressed at this attempt to stop science which holds so much promise for their children. (Life Sciences Network, 2003)

A representative of the Cystic Fibrosis Association published an open letter, saying that ‘We are mothers of children who through no fault of their own have a flaw in their genetic makeup …. We find it abhorrent that your group [MAdGE] wishes to stop vital medical research’ (The Press, 2003). A NZORD press release later in the year noted:

We suspect those mothers’ [MAdGE] response would rapidly change if they discovered a severe or fatal rare disease in their family, and they were aware of the potential of this research …. Many rare disease support groups, consisting of patients, mothers and fathers, are well aware of the AgResearch project, and strongly support these efforts by scientists to treat or cure their diseases. (New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders, 2003)

These pronouncements contested MAdGE’s position and its presumed unique identity as a group of concerned mothers. They invoked a rather different maternal identity, rooted not in relation to healthy children but to children suffering from disease. Accordingly, the therapeutic promise of the transgenic cow research was not a matter of profits or scientific esteem, but a contribution to the greater social good; it represented a glimmer of hope for a normal (healthy) life and social/family relationships for those affected by genetic diseases. Such arguments suggested that the groups who backed AgResearch’s work had a much more significant cognitive and emotional investment in the therapeutic vision it represented.

In February 2003 the transgenic cow researchers at AgResearch published the findings of their project on the modified casein content of dairy milk which stemmed from their





first application to ERMA (Brophy et al., 2003). Increased casein levels were achieved through the insertion of additional copies of beta and kappa casein genes. The scientists argued that their results demonstrated the feasibility of using a transgenic approach to improve the functional properties of dairy milk. They suggested that at a production scale, the changes ‘would translate into substantial economic gains’ (Brophy et al., 2003: 159). These findings were reported in the international media (for example, BBC, 2003; Pollack, 2003). Apart from the positive results of the casein work, there was nothing especially new in AgResearch’s publication, but the reports seemed to confirm the suspi-cions of the critics of the therapeutic claims attached to the transgenic human-cow hybrids. Anti-GE groups seized on the reports as evidence that ‘GE cows promoted to the New Zealand public as offering miracle cures are aimed at altering dairy products for human consumption and to increase profits of cheese manufacturers’ (GE Free NZ, 2003).

MAdGE’s High Court case against ERMA, the Minister for the Environment, and AgResearch, opened on 10 June 2003. MAdGE marked the occasion with ‘a silent vigil’ of ‘mothers wearing rubber cow heads’ (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003a). They backed this up with a poster campaign dubbed ‘Ladies in Waiting’, which pictured a group of six women wearing cow head masks in a court-like environment (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003d). This theatrical tactic resonated with previous anti-GM protests in other countries (Levidow, 2000), and emphasized the transgressive nature of the transgenic cows AgResearch was developing – ‘a woman is not a cow, nor is a cow a woman’ (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003f)

On 7 July 2003, the High Court ruled that ERMA’s decision to approve the application by AgResearch was lawful, although the ruling criticized the Ministry for the Environment for the ‘informal’ way it had performed its functions (NZ Herald, 2003b).25 AgResearch successfully applied for legal costs against MAdGE, a decision that ‘outraged’ its mem-bers (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003e). MAdGE struggled to raise the NZ$24,000 ordered by the Court. Despite the financial threat, Alannah Currie and her colleagues at MAdGE continued their anti-GM protest, saving their most dramatic act for October 2003, during the lead-up to lifting the mora-torium on applications to release GMOs.26 On 1 October, MAdGE unveiled a billboard campaign in New Zealand’s two main cities (Auckland and Wellington), which proved highly controversial. The billboard, designed by Currie, showed a naked four-breasted woman kneeling on all fours in side profile, with her breasts hooked up to milking appa-ratus and a red ‘GE’ brand on her buttock (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003g). Symbolically, this billboard inverted the hybridization plan to insert human DNA into cows: instead of humanizing the cow, to create a bovine–human hybrid with human DNA coding for a specific protein (myelin), the billboard ‘bovanized’ the woman, reducing her to the status of a human–animal chimera – the ‘cow girl’ (Wong, 2003) – that some people regarded as monstrous and which ran foul of the Advertising Standards Authority. Though surely not meant as a literal depiction of the future, the billboard portrayed a dystopian image that was meant to dramatize horrific developments in the present – ‘How far will we allow them to go?’ (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003f). As van Dijck (1998: 14) observes, ‘through utopian or dystopian fictional filters, the balance between the potential





and the admissible is weighed’. Similarly, the ‘cow girl’ image visually embodied the question raised in MAdGE’s (2003f) press release that accompanied the release of the billboard: ‘Why Not Just Genetically Engineer Women For Milk?’ MAdGE’s self-identity as a group of mothers lent further significance to this imagery.27

Discussion and conclusionThis paper has examined the regulation of AgResearch’s transgenic cow research pro-gramme in New Zealand between 1998 and 2003. In particular, we have focused on the intersection between the official governance process (the formal regulatory scrutiny of the risks and benefits associated with the GM research), and the public debate, protest and legal challenges to the research. Aligning the transgenic cow research with human health and the treatment of disease offered a more palatable public narrative than one of economic advan-tage. Furthermore, the articulation of a ‘rhetoric of hope’ (Mulkay, 1993) that fostered an image of science in the service of the public good drew in allies such as patient support groups, particularly for MS. However, as we have seen, a number of anti-GM groups remained implacably sceptical about the therapeutic claims, regarding them as a mask for commercial interests. To an extent, their position coincided with the stance adopted by ERMA, the regulatory authority: specifically its cautious stance toward the promised health benefits from the research and its subsequent justification for allowing it to proceed (under controlled conditions) in terms of potential advances in scientific knowledge.

Following our description and analysis of the conflict, we would like to conclude by raising some issues that resonate with other contexts as well. First, we would argue that exploring the role of imagination in technoscientific innovation is useful for understand-ing its development and governance. Scientific innovation involves interaction between science and its publics, and addressing science involves recognizing and acknowledging the legitimacy of the public concerns and meanings that also constitute the scientific issues in question (Wynne, 2008). These concerns and meanings express and are medi-ated by the various imagined consequences of an innovation. Moreover, the imagined aspects of innovation pertain not only to the objects of governance, such as the alleged benefits and dangers of a particular innovation, but also the groups, institutions and proc-esses germane to that governance. As we saw in the transgenic cow debate, the different Māori voices that were expressed rendered problematic the imagined community under-pinning the category of ‘Māori’, which was inscribed into the process of consultation within the regulatory procedures conducted by ERMA. Thus the imagination, we might conclude, plays a role in enacting governance as well as in the innovations that are the objects of governance.

Second, with reference to the theme of boundaries and what might be regarded as the preservation of purity through the confinement of danger, it seems paradoxical that the detailed stipulations about safety that emerged through the regulatory process – such as the containment fences, tagging, procedures for the disposal of animal products and car-casses, and so on – also gave concrete expression to the very dangers imagined by GM opponents. Having been signalled in this way, such dangers become difficult to deny. That said, the governance of risk is of course a diachronic matter, and the idea of appropriate and effective regulation through material devices such as the electronic fences and other





measures is not guaranteed for all time. Rather, it presupposes the continued vigilance of organizations delegated with the task of managing the risks involved. In the case exam-ined here, it requires ongoing monitoring and maintenance of the transgenic cattle con-tainment facilities which in turn require audit, the audit of such audits, and so on.

Third, the received notion of a clear boundary between expert and lay knowledge, a division that runs deep in Western scientific rationality (Gieryn, 1999; Wynne, 2003), is integral to the regulation of GM in New Zealand. This distinction informed the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification in New Zealand which, though lauded in certain quarters as a model of public consultation, nonetheless was criticized for effectively marginalizing the views of Māori and other groups opposed to genetic transfer between species (Goven, 2006; Hindmarsh and Du Plessis, 2008; Rogers-Hayden, 2005).28 Although the consultation process attending each of AgResearch’s proposals meant that the views of Māori were acknowledged, those views remained ineffectual in the face of the seeming march of scientific progress. The modification of the containment controls to respect Māori sensitivities was a minor concession that did not deter the overall direc-tion and impetus of the research. Of course, one of the problems associated with the expert versus non-expert boundary is its asymmetrical apportioning of legitimacy to the expert (or scientific) side of the divide. It does not readily accept or even acknowledge that scientific opinion can itself be divided: that the ‘accepted facts’ of one group of sci-entists often are contested, regarded as speculation, or even dismissed as wishful think-ing by other scientific experts. Certainly, though MAdGE’s infamous dystopian image of the ‘cow girl’ billboard presented a genetic modification that would not be realized, some of the claims of the pro-GM scientists were also controversial. AgResearch’s pro-posed research enabled the scientists to develop their knowledge and skills in the area of genetic manipulation, cloning and the production of GM animals, but the issue of whether any tangible health benefits might result remained very much open to question. Given all the scientific uncertainties, it was clear that the possible cure for MS was more a matter of imagination (a present future) than of accepted knowledge.

Finally, AgResearch’s transgenic programme passed through the regulatory process (albeit it with delays and in the face of new requirements on containment and so on) and survived additional legal hurdles that were encountered along the way. Nonetheless it also faced considerable scientific hurdles in moving from its imagined/theoretical con-structs to living transgenic cattle – as the low survival-to-term rate of the transgenic calf embryos indicates. However, although the transgenic animal research continues one could argue that the biggest challenge remains – namely, the public’s reluctance to con-sume GM products. Even if the research was to be deemed successful in scientific terms, and any scaled-up production proved viable in business or economic terms, there is still the considerable difficulty of convincing the general public that the products (whether food or pharmaceutical) from transgenic animals are safe.29 Thus, although anti-GM groups such as MAdGE had limited influence within the regulatory process, in the wider society their mobilization of symbolic and discursive resources could be judged more effective. After all, MAdGE’s representatives were media savvy and displays of sym-bolic protest in the struggle over the representation of the transgenic cow research were a preferred modality of political action. When it to comes to the lasting impact on public opinion, time alone will tell, but as two of AgResearch’s leading scientists acknowledged,





commercial release of transgenic animal products into the food chain is likely to be slow given ‘uncertainties surrounding consumer acceptance … [and] the current status of the regulatory frameworks’ (Laible and Wells, 2007: 111). Moreover, as the fate of GM crops in Europe indicates, it is possible that public disquiet may be displaced rather than removed: for when GM crops entered the food supply, consumer demands (pressed into the regulation of the industry) required new boundaries to be erected with the difference between the ‘pure’ and the ‘impure’ signalled and enforced through food labelling. This imposed additional costs on the industry while also creating new objects of governance requiring specific regulatory attention (Lezaun, 2006). Both the imposition of such boundaries and the policing of boundaries is a matter of knowledge: for without access to the necessary laboratory testing facilities it is not possible to readily distinguish between, say, GM milk and non-GM milk. The regulation of GM products within the food supply chain (or for that matter in the pharmaceutical industry) therefore requires public trust in the organizations concerned, but in the context of recurrent scandals over food/drug safety this might continue to prove elusive.

Acknowledgement

We are indebted to Mike Lynch and four anonymous referees for their valuable comments. The support of Auckland University of Technology is gratefully acknowledged by Brian Bloomfield who spent a period of sabbatical leave there during 2008.

Notes

1. AgResearch is New Zealand’s largest Crown Research Institute and conducts research and development in support of New Zealand’s pastoral and biotechnology sectors. Crown Research Institutes were created from former government departments during public sector science reform in the early 1990s, with the expectation of an increased strategic and market focus.

2. The current regulatory regime for governing GMOs in New Zealand dates back to 1998 when the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 came into effect. The Act estab-lished the Environmental Risk Management Authority, a quasi-judicial body of up to eight members appointed by the Minister for the Environment, which makes decisions on applica-tions to import, develop or field test new organisms, including GMOs. In doing so, it is required to evaluate the risks, costs and benefits of such applications. Its decisions are guided by a specific decision-making framework and methodology, and it has the ability to publicly ‘notify’ an application that is considered to be of sufficient public interest, in order to receive submissions and hold public hearings (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 2003). The Act also established a statutory Māori advisory committee to ERMA, Ngā Kaihautū Tikanga Taiao, comprising up to eight members with expertise in both Māori culture and environmental knowledge (Satterfield and Roberts, 2008).

3. Planned, as opposed to arising by chance. But even in the case of an unplanned innovation, assumptions have to be made about how it will be applied.

4. Established by the New Zealand Government in 2000, the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Genetic Modification consulted experts, received oral and written submissions, conducted





public meetings (including with Māori) and held formal hearings. During the Inquiry, a voluntary moratorium on applications for the field release of GMOs was established. In July 2001, the Commission released its report, in which it recommended a precautionary approach: ‘New Zealand should keep its options open. It would be unwise to turn our back on the poten-tial advantages [of GM] on offer, but we should proceed carefully, minimising and managing risks’ (Royal Commission on Genetic Modification, 2001: 2). Among the Commission’s rec-ommendations were amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 to improve its operation, the development of a biotechnology strategy for New Zealand, and the establishment of a Bioethics Council (Toi Te Taiao) to act as an advisory body on ethical, social and cultural matters in the use of biotechnology and to enable public participation. The government extended the moratorium on applications for the field release of GMOs until October 2003, to allow recommended changes to be implemented.

5. The first use of large domesticated mammals to produce therapeutic human proteins in their milk was in the 1990s, with the creation of various transgenic animals (for example, Väliverronen, 2004; Wilmut et al., 2000).

6. It seems that her comments were based on the quoted remarks of a New Zealand Dairy Board official, who in referring to ‘alter[ing] the composition of bovine milk so that it resembles human milk’ may have meant the deletion of the bovine milk protein gene responsible for lactose allergies.

7. The concept of whakapapa (genealogy) is central to Māori spiritual and cultural values, and has its basis in the idea that all things are interrelated. GM is seen as interfering with these relation-ships between generations and species; in effect, a re-ordering of the cosmos (Hutchings, 2002).

8. The August 1999 public hearing on the AgResearch application attracted 30 submissions (seven in support and 23 against) and a presentation from the local Māori hapū (sub-tribe) in the area where the research was to be conducted. Although the majority of the submitters were private individuals, some represented interest groups such as the Multiple Sclerosis Society of New Zealand, the Maternity Services Consumer Council, the Federated Famers associa-tion, and the New Zealand Dairy Board. Issues raised in the submissions included the poten-tial risks to human health, concerns about the containment system to be used, the risk of gene transfer, environmental issues, the compromising of New Zealand’s international reputation, the potential economic benefits, animal welfare concerns, the compromise of ethical values and the lack of public debate on GM (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 1999a).

9. In accordance with standards approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (1999) and endorsed by ERMA.

10. ‘Members of the Network are New Zealand and Australian national industry organisations, universities, research institutes, science organisations, grower organisations etc.’ (Life Sciences Network, 2002).

11. ‘The gene construct is a copy of a human gene sequence. The copy was made from human DNA in an international gene bank’ (Environmental Risk Management Authority, 2000). Accepting the cultural significance of human genes, the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification (2001) recommended that wherever possible synthetic human genes (copies) ought to be used rather than actual (that is, original) human material (7.6).

12. ‘Tangata whenua’ is the Māori term for the Māori iwi (tribe) or hapū (sub-tribe) that holds customary rights and traditional authority over a particular geographic area.





13. For a review of some of the issues see Māori Law Review (2002) and Satterfield and Roberts (2008).

14. Bleakley v Environmental Risk Management Authority (2001) 3 NZLR 213.15. At the beginning of December 2000, the first AgResearch transgenic cloned calves were born.

They were part of the transgenic research to increase the content of casein in dairy milk.16. The link between the research and the treatment of MS took on a particularly concrete form

in this article: ‘It was hoped the calves … would produce a special protein in their milk which, if beneficial, could potentially be purified into a solid pill for MS sufferers’ (Brown, 2001, emphasis added).

17. In this context post-translational modifications are changes to protein molecules that result from the actions of the cow mammary gland following protein biosynthesis. ‘Of all systems capable of expressing genetically modified proteins, the cow mammary gland is necessary because of the high-protein output and the ability to produce correctly processed functional proteins’ (AgResearch, 2002).

18. See www.genesanddairying.com.19. The earlier version had sought approval for only those parts of the development process for

which AgResearch did not have delegated authority from ERMA.20. Approval was sought ‘to develop transgenic embryos and then transfer those embryos to

conventional recipient cattle housed in a containment facility, better described as an outdoor laboratory … thus producing transgenic calves’ (AgResearch, 2002; emphasis added), where expression of the transgenes could be evaluated. Using the term ‘outdoor laboratory’ implies a scientific experiment and a higher degree of control than a ‘field test’.

21. Including a tighter definition of the organism description to restrict the use of bacterial and viral DNA sequences, and a reduction of the duration from 10 years to 7.5 years.

22. ‘The human race has ever been on the cusp of innovation. Currently, biotechnology is the new frontier. Continuation of research is critical to New Zealand’s future’ (Royal Commission on Genetic Modification, 2001: 3).

23. Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment (MAdGE) was a network of ‘non-politically aligned women who are actively resisting the use of genetically engineered organisms in our food and on our land’ (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003c: 1). Fronted by Alannah Currie, former 1980s pop star and member of the Thompson Twins, the group launched in 2001 and became involved in anti-GM marches, supermarket protests and celebrity poster campaigns.

24. As Alannah Currie of MAdGE was quoted as saying: ‘Genetic Engineering is a science in its infancy and as mothers we know that infants require great care’ (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment, 2003b).

25. Mothers Against Genetic Engineering Inc v Minister for the Environment (2003) BCL 762.26. The period leading up to the eventual lifting of the moratorium on 29 October 2003 was the

focus of intense lobbying and public debate.27. The burden of the court costs awarded against it and the departure overseas of the group’s

frontperson, Alannah Currie, led to MAdGE eventually disbanding in late 2004.28. According to Goven (2006), although the Royal Commission on GM displayed sensitivity in

recognizing the variety of worldviews in play within the debate over GM in New Zealand its deliberations were framed in accordance with a pluralistic model of governance, one founded





on the assumption that it was not legitimate to impose the values of any one interest group over those of another. Further, given the presumption that science was value-free – something that we might regard as part of the imaginary operating at the heart of the work of the Royal Commission – she argues that there was therefore no contradiction in the suggestion that GM research be pursued albeit with regulation.

29. A problem most recently manifest in the response to the revelation that products derived from the progeny of cloned animals had illicitly entered the food supply in the UK (Poulter, 2010).

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Biographical notes

Brian P. Bloomfield is Professor of Technology and Organisation in the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology at Lancaster University, UK. His research interests include social imaginaries and the promotion of, and resistance to, technoscientific inno-vations; theorizations of sociomateriality; and the role of technology in narratives of organization/disorganization.

Bill Doolin is Professor of Technology and Organisation in the Business School at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. His research utilizes approaches based on discourse analysis and the sociology of technology to explore the implications of technology in organizations and society.




imagination and technoscientific innovations: governance of transgenic cows in new zealand

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