Frank C. Miller, “Knowledge and Power: Anthropology, Policy Research, and the Green Revolution,” American Ethnologist 4, no. 1 (Feb. 1977), 190-198.

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Notes

Frank C. Miller – University of Minnesota

• 190 – “In distant lands we have been accused of academic imperialism: it is said that we mine the colonies for data and take the profits home, contributing nothing to the welfare of the people who have furnished that data.”
• In a famous paper a few years ago, Vine Deloria (1969:81) said: ‘The fundamental thesis of the anthropologists is that people are objects for observation, people are then considered objects for experimentation, for manipulation, and for eventual extinction. The anthropologist thus furnishes the justification for treating Indian people like so many chessman available for anyone to play with.’”

 

• “The ‘Green Revolution’ would seem to be an ideal topic for research by economic anthropologists and cultural ecologists, yet they have virtually ignored it. A classical example of the hazards in technological solutions to human problems, it has had a great impact, sometimes favorable but more often not, on peasants in some Third World nations. This paper assesses the new technology and associated economic constraints of the ‘Green Revolution’ and criticized the development strategies that have guided the introduction of the new technology. The sources of the anthropological disinterest are considered, and the potential role of anthropology in technology assessment is discussed.”

 

• 191 – “There is a new willingness to examine our assymetrical [sic] relationship with the subjects of our research and a new determination to seek ways to redress the balance. Lisa Peattie has demonstrated the importance and the pitfalls of advocacy planning. Laura Nader has given both a scientific and a political rationale for ‘studying up’: doing research on superordinate groups in one’s own society rather than subordinate groups elsewhere. Recently a number of people, notably Stephen Schensul, have shown what anthropologists can contribute when they work directly in the service of local groups oriented to change.”
• “I shall use it [the Green Revolution] as a vehicle for addressing some fundamental issues about the role of technology in social change and about the role of anthropologists in policy research.”
• 191-92“Acclaim for the Green Revolution perhaps reached it peak in 1970, when Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering role during some thirty years of work on the development of the ‘miracle seeds.’ The Green Revolution has been praised profusely as another triumph of modern science: many years of painstaking research, first at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico and later at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, finally paid off. The new, high yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat bred by Borlaug in Mexico were gradually but steadily adopted on most of the wheat acreage in that country. A nation that imported half its wheat in 1943, when CIMMYT was founded, became a wheat-exporting nation twenty years later.”
• 192 – “The spread of optimism about the Green Revolution was almost as rapid as the spread of the new varieties themselves.”
• 192-93 – “In the euphoric haze of 1968, the Green Revolution appeared to be a case of technology triumphant, and it was a new kind of technology: biological and chemical rather than mechanical. Thus it seemed to be neutral with regard to scale, as economists use the concept of scale: the new seeds would grow and fertilizer would work as well on one acre as on one hundred. Since it did not require tractores or mechanical planters and harvesters, which are more efficient on large units of land than on small, it held promise of benefiting small farmers as much as large. Not only would the Green Revolution solve the world food problem, it would bring agricultural self-sufficiency to developing societies and a measure of relative prosperity to peasants and small farmers.”
• 193 – “The accumulating evidence about the economic and social impact of the new technology casts doubt on these optimistic expectations. Six years ago Shaw (1970) analyzed the effects of the Green Revolution on employment in agriculture. The new varieties require more labor for several reasons: more work is involved in cultivation, in the application of fertilizer and pesticides, and especially in the many cases where multiple cropping is made possible.”
• “The actual amount of labor employed, of course, depends on the degree of mechanization. Since the Green Revolution increases the need for labor, it also increases the incentive for mechanization. Especially among larger operators, greater profits from higher yields generate additional capital for investing in machinery. Consequently the rate and type of mechanization is one of the crucial variables determining the impact of the Green Revolution.”
• “Since the Green Revolution favors large over small farmers and landlords over tenants, Shaw believes that the need for land reform is urgent, before technical change drives land values higher and further solidifies the position of the landlords.”
• 194 – “Earlier in this paper I referred to the widely-held expectation that the Green Revolution would be neutral with regard to scale, since the new seeds would grow as well on a few acres as on many. [Keith, a Fellow and Tutor in Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, and sometime adviser to developing nations and international agencies] Griffin demonstrates that, while the technology itself is largely neutral, the associated institutions are not: ‘Extension agents concentrate on the large farmers; credit agencies concentrate on low risk borrowers; those who sell fertilizers, pesticides and other chemical inputs concentrate on cultivators who are likely to buy the largest quantities . . . unless small peasants have equal access to knowledge, finance and material inputs, innovation will inevitably favour the prosperous and the secure at the expense of the poor and insecure.’”
• “Griffin and Shaw are only two of many who have marshalled the accumulating evidence to demonstrate that the Green Revolution has not realized its potential for the rural poor in developing societies. It is not because the technology is inadequate — although the technology has some problems not recognized by its enthusiasts — but becasue government policy favors those who already have advantages — those with more land, more capital, and better access to supporting institutions.”
• [SECTION: WHERE WERE THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS]

 

• “I turn now to consider the role of anthropology in assessing the Green Revolution. The actual role has been negligible, but the potential role is significant. In rather extensive reading during the past year, I have discovered only four pieces of empirical research by anthropologists from the United States.”

 

• 195 – “Apart from these notable contributions, anthropologists have essentially ignored the Green Revolution. Such neglect seems curious indeed, since anthropology led the way years ago in the study of peasant society and culture. Why would the discipline ignore one of the biggest things in agriculture since the invention of the plow?”
• “In my own field of specialization, Mexico, anthropologists study corn farmers, artisans or urbanites, but not commercial farmers, the only group that raises much wheat and consequently the only group much affected by the Green Revolution.”
• 196 – “During the middle and late 1960s, the dominant theoretical interests in the United States were ethno-science, ethno-semantics, and other varieties of cognitive anthropology. . . . The formal analysis of folk taxonomies, regardless of its theoretical merits, is not likely to inspire a burning interest in the Green Revolution. Cognitive anthropology is not concerned with the distribution of wealth and power or with the way that new technology affects the distribution.”
• [SECTION: TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT AND ANTHROPOLOGY]
• “Perhaps most anthropologists believe that they have no special qualifications for assessing a massive new technology such as the Green Revolution. My tendency not to share that sense of incapacity has been reinforced by reading the literature on the social impact of the Green Revolution. There are many ways that anthropology could contribute to an understanding of that impact. The assessment of a new technology requires answers to three sets of questions: (1) What are the intrinsic attributes of the new technology? What can it do, and how is it superior to the old? (2) What new constraints are associated with these attributes? (3) Who controls the application of the technology, and for whose benefit? Answering these questions obviously would be a multidisciplinary endeavor of formidable scope, ranging from plant genetics through agronomy to the social sciences.”

 

• “The combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques is crucial because the impact of new technology involves highly complex questions about ‘costs’ and ‘benefits.’ Many aspects of human welfare can be measured by quantitative indicators; but, just as quantification is not an invention of the Devil to encourage intellectual sloth, neither is it the golden road to salvation. Some of the costs of a new technology involve features of human existence that are not readily quantifiable; nevertheless, they may be perceived by the people directly involved as the greatest costs. In any case, costs and benefits should be assessed from both an ‘etic’ and an ‘emic’ point of view. The ecological effects of pesticides are important whether or not they are recognized in the world-view of the local cultures. On the other hand, local people may perceive costs and benefits that are not understood by outside technicians and planners.”

• Put in direct conversation with econometric approaches to understanding the Green Revolution