Doing Anthropological Research on GMOs

Glenn Davis Stone is a Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Washington University in St Louis. Professor Stone’s research focuses on environmental anthropology, political ecology, food studies and science & technology studies. He has conducted fieldwork among nonindustrial farmers in West Africa, India, the Philippines and North America, and he has been researching and writing on Genetically Modified crops since 2002, and was the author of a major review article on The Anthropology of Genetically Modified Crops” in the Annual Review of Anthropology in 2010. In this podcast, Prof. Stone discusses how he came to research GMOs, why he opposes both the praising and condemning of GM crops, why he thinks GMOs are so polarizing, and what he thinks anthropologists can contribute to the debates about GMOs. He also explains why he has done research on “heirloom rice” among the Ifugao in the Philippines. At the end of the podcast, Dr. Stone discusses the controversy over the use of CRISPR technology on humans.