Article
ID: CBB001320193

Insect Control in Socialist China and the Corporate United States: The Act of Comparison, the Tendency to Forget, and the Construction of Difference in 1970s U.S.--Chinese Scientific Exchange (2013)

unapi
Cross-national comparison Environmental protection Public policy Entomology Pesticides; insecticides Cross-national interaction Insect control 20th century, late China United States

In 1975, a delegation of U.S. entomologists traveled to socialist China to observe Chinese insect control science. Their overwhelmingly positive reports highlighted in relief the pernicious effects of pesticide corporations on U.S. agriculture; some entomologists hoped this would goad the United States to catch up to China in environmentally sensible insect control practices. Of course, insect control in socialist China carried its own political baggage, some of which---for example, mass mobilization and self-reliance---the state made highly visible to visitors, and some of which---for example, harsh treatment of scientists---it sought to obscure. For both the U.S. and the Chinese participants, the act of comparison itself was of primary significance in the exchange, allowing them to construct socialist Chinese science as refreshingly different from U.S. science. At the same time, however, this construction of difference meant forgetting the much longer transnational history in which U.S. and Chinese entomology had been intertwined.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320193/

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Authors & Contributors
Kleinman, Daniel Lee
Kinkela, David
Ceccatti, John S.
Suryanarayanan, Sainath
John J. Rush
Jennie L Durant
Journals
Social Studies of Science
Science, Technology and Human Values
Physics in Perspective
Science as Culture
Science
Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Publishers
University of North Carolina Press
Rutgers University Press
MIT Press
Greenwood Press
Chronos
Berghahn Books
Concepts
Pesticides; insecticides
Public policy
Insect control
Science and politics
Cross-national comparison
Entomology
People
Reed, Walter
Lee, Tsung Dao
Commoner, Barry
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
21st century
20th century, early
19th century
Places
United States
China
California (U.S.)
Switzerland
Germany
France
Institutions
United States. Environmental Protection Agency
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