Bio-Economy Policy Visions

Abstract

A growing body of research outlines the important role played by policy visions, master narratives, imaginaries, and other discourses in the emergence of and support for different bio-economies around the world. In this chapter, I outline the different and competing policy visions in the Canadian bio-economy as a way to analyse the fragmented nature of the Canadian policy frameworks designed to support the enactment of the bio-economy. As such, I argue that these policy visions are not simply descriptive discourses, they are also generative or performative in that they direct policy attention, policy support, and policy funding towards particular conceptions of the bio-economy. Here, policy visions are frequently entwined with ‘neoliberal’ narratives about the benefits of markets, although the relationship between these narratives and visions of sustainable transitions often come into conflict with one another.