Network framing of pest management knowledge and practice

Abstract

Conventional technology transfer is based on the assumption that autonomous individuals independently make behavioral decisions. In contrast, Actor-Network Theory (ANT) suggests that people and technologies are interconnected in ways that reinforce and reproduce some types of knowledge and consequent behavioral practices, but not others. Research on pest management in Mali shows the extent to which farm-level decisions are shaped off-farm through contracts that communicate commercial and regulatory decision-making information. Findings from the analysis of Ukrainian farmer pest management decision-making demonstrate the exercise of power of commercial interests. In light of these findings, evidence from Farmer Field School experiences in Indonesia is reinterpreted. This paper concludes that knowledge networks are not monolithic and, furthermore, there is competition between network segments to define appropriate knowledge and practice. It also recommends that agricultural scientists pay more attention to the negotiations framing legitimate knowledge about the networks in which their producer clienteles are embedded. Copyright © 2008 by the Rural Sociological Society.