ABSTRACT
In a 1999 opinion poll, 35 per cent of respondents surveyed across Europe agreed with the statement “Ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified tomatoes do”, with 35 per cent disagreeing and 30 per cent saying that they did not know (INRA [EUROPE] – ECOSA 2000). In the UK specifically, even more people – 40 per cent – said that that they did not know. As part of the developing debate about genetically modified (GM) food at the time, many commentators used this piece of data (which remained fairly consistent across several years of surveying) to bemoan the state of scientific education in modern society and to argue for more public information about GM food, as they thought this would overturn public distrust of this new technology. Others pointed out that more education does not necessarily translate into more support for genetic modification or any other form of technology – research is inconclusive or contradictory about the effect of information provision on purchases of GM food, for example. This chapter is about practices of environmental knowing amongst publics, which includes learning about science such as GM, but also other forms of knowing and learning about the environment. It is not about what people know, that is, the facts that they do or do not hold in their heads, but about how they come to know (or not know) about environments: the knowing and learning practices that environmental publics perform and what these teach us about geographies of environmental publics and the implications for power relations.
