Managing Public Resistance to Pesticides Through Ignorance Production

Managing Public Resistance to Pesticides Through Ignorance Production: New Zealand’s 2002-2004 Urban Pesticide Spraying Operation Against the Painted Apple Moth.

How do government agencies work to reduce public resistance to pesticide use? What lessons are there for civic advocates and organizers? This talk sheds light on these questions by examining New Zealand’s 2002-2004 urban aerial pesticide spraying campaign to eliminate an invasive moth. 

Speaker: Manuel Vallée is the current head of discipline for sociology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests include social control, the management of uncomfortable knowledge, state environmental violence, and the social construction of pesticide use.