(The) green revolution as a slow violence: making pesticide poisoning invisible in Korea

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine pesticide hazard in the green revolution in South Korea with the concept of “slow violence.” The green revolution initiatives of the 1970s strongly encouraged the extensive usage of pesticides among farmers. It was because the high-yielding rice varieties, such as Tong-il, could not be cultivated without pesticides. The intensive use of pesticides caused poisoning on farmers and pesticide residues problems on food. However, toxic hazards of pesticides were differently represented by the government. This study shows that the government’s analysis was restricted to the residue problem in the food instead of the broader issue of farmers’ exposure to pesticides. Even when pesticide poisoning recurred, the government did not devise the policy measures to solve the problem. Pesticides poisoning of farmers was under-discussed in Korean society until the government change in the 1980s. This thesis argues that this selective discourse on pesticides in the green revolution worked as violence that caused human cost of the modernization.