IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB459611870

Ignorance loops: How non-knowledge about bee-toxic agrochemicals is iteratively produced (October 2020)

Jennie L Durant (Author)

Social Studies of Science
Volume: 50
Issue: 5
Pages: 751-777
Publication date: October 2020
Language: English

DOI: 10.1177/0306312720923390

URI: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306312720923390

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Entomology Science and technology studies (STS) Bees; apiculture Regulation Pesticides; insecticides 21st century 20th century, late United States California (U.S.) United States. Environmental Protection Agency

In this article, I examine the knowledge politics around pesticides in the United States and the role it plays in honey bee declines. Since 2006, US beekeepers have lost an average of one-third of their colonies each year. Though a number of factors influence bee health, beekeepers, researchers and policymakers cite pesticides as a primary contributor. In the US, pesticide registration is overseen by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with the required tests conducted by chemical companies applying for registration. Until 2016, the EPA only required chemical companies to measure acute toxicity for non-target species, which means that many pesticides with sublethal toxicities are not labeled bee-toxic, and farmers can apply them without penalty while bees are on their farms or orchards. In addition, California state and county regulators will typically only investigate a bee kill caused by a labeled bee-toxic pesticide, and so emergent data on non-labeled, sublethal pesticides goes uncollected. These gaps in data collection frustrate beekeepers and disincentivize them from reporting colony losses to regulatory agencies – thus reinforcing ignorance about which chemicals are toxic to bees. I term the iterative cycle of non-knowledge co-constituted by regulatory shortfalls and stakeholder regulatory disengagement an ‘ignorance loop’. I conclude with a discussion of what this dynamic can tell us about the politics of knowledge production and pesticide governance and the consequences of ‘ignorance loops’ for stakeholders and the environment.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB459611870

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Suryanarayanan, Sainath; Daniel Lee Kleinman. Daniel Lee; (April 2013)
Be(e)coming experts: The controversy over insecticides in the honey bee colony collapse disorder (/p/isis/citation/CBB096871778/)

Article Julie Guthman; Sandy Brown; (May 2016)
Whose Life Counts: Biopolitics and the “Bright Line” of Chloropicrin Mitigation in California’s Strawberry Industry (/p/isis/citation/CBB827594313/)

Article Becky Mansfield; (2021)
Deregulatory science: Chemical risk analysis in Trump’s EPA (/p/isis/citation/CBB234438851/)

Article Angela N. H. Creager; (September 2021)
To Test or Not to Test: Tools, Rules, and Corporate Data in US Chemicals Regulation (/p/isis/citation/CBB745420064/)

Article Anne Jorunn Frøyen; (2019)
Influencing for Results: Bees, Beekeepers and Norwegian Pesticide Legislation (/p/isis/citation/CBB741842597/)

Article Langston, Nancy; (January 2018)
DOCUMERICA and the Power of Environmental History (/p/isis/citation/CBB114442000/)

Thesis Adam Tompkins; (2011)
Ghostworkers and Greens Collaborative Engagements in Pesticide Reform, 1962–2011 (/p/isis/citation/CBB966336667/)

Book Dvera I. Saxton; (2021)
The Devil's Fruit: Farmworkers, Health, and Environmental Justice (/p/isis/citation/CBB347232041/)

Article Nash, Linda; (2004)
The Fruits of Ill-Health: Pesticides and Workers' Bodies in Post-World War II California (/p/isis/citation/CBB000750328/)

Article Schmalzer, Sigrid; (2013)
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 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320193/)

Book Eleanor Herz Swent; (2021)
One Shot for Gold: Developing a Modern Mine in Northern California (/p/isis/citation/CBB669360739/)

Book David Vogel; (2018)
California Greenin': How the Golden State Became an Environmental Leader (/p/isis/citation/CBB569183355/)

Article Amy Adams Quark; (2019)
Outsourcing Regulatory Decision-making: “International” Epistemic Communities, Transnational Firms, and Pesticide Residue Standards in India (/p/isis/citation/CBB678564374/)

Article Jennifer Bonnell; (January 2021)
Early Insecticide Controversies and Beekeeper Advocacy in the Great Lakes Region (/p/isis/citation/CBB042359495/)

Article Evan Hepler-Smith; (July 2019)
Molecular Bureaucracy: Toxicological Information and Environmental Protection (/p/isis/citation/CBB364814374/)

Article Charles Halvorson; (Spring 2019)
Deflated Dreams: The EPA's Bubble Policy and the Politics of Uncertainty in Regulatory Reform (/p/isis/citation/CBB066968357/)

Book Brian Craig; (2020)
Stringfellow acid pits : The toxic and legal legacy (/p/isis/citation/CBB946609160/)

Article Andrey Vozyanov; (June 2018)
Solution into problem: Ukrainian Marshrutka and Romanian maxi-taxi at the fall of planning paradigms after 1990 (/p/isis/citation/CBB504216233/)

Book David Demortain; (2020)
The Science of Bureaucracy: Risk Decision-Making and the US Environmental Protection Agency (/p/isis/citation/CBB170498113/)

Book Schoenbrod, David; (2005)
Saving Our Environment from Washington: How Congress Grabs Power, Shirks Responsibility, and Shortchanges the People (/p/isis/citation/CBB000773258/)