Food Biotechnologies in Italy: a Social Psychological Study

Italy firmly resists farming genetically modified crops, while in the rest of Europe GM plants are being cultivated for experimental and commercial use. This peculiar circumstance is the result of an unusual convergence in the positions of Italian political parties across the parliamentary spectrum, matched by the will of citizens as manifested in countless local and regional deliberations against GMOs. Stemming from a three year international project funded by the W.U., the present study looks at social psychological dimensions of this state of affairs. On what bases are food biotechnologies accepted or refused in Italy? What arguments are deployed for of against GMOs by scientist, legislators, lay citizens, eminent members of the Catholic Church, and local representatives? With a linguistically oriented approach, this work analyzes the articulation of several conflicting discourses about food biotechnologies in Italy between 2001 and 2006. Through the detailed analysis of texts from a rich database of interviews, press articles, and informal conversations, the study illustrates how arguments are socially constructed and negotiated and how ideologically and culturally loaded standpoints surface in the communicative process. At a theoretical level, the present work offers a discussion of the ongoing debate between Discursive Psychology and Social Representations theory and in so doing engages with key questions related to the status of communicative action data in social research.