Daniel Puente Rodríguez (Msc)
PhD Researcher
Background:
Daniel Puente Rodríguez graduated in Sociology at the Salamanca University (Spain). He finished his master studies with a project on “Insumision”; a social movement of people who were refusing the military duty. His active militancy in this movement forced him to stop with his research interests. After the graduation he followed, in the context of a PhD research, the postdoctoral courses “The natural and social environment in the social sciences”. As an independent researcher he participated in the investigations: “Life in the periphery : Sociological study in the neighborhood of Buenos Aires in Salamanca by means of Participative-Action Investigation” and “Industrial and socioeconomic changes in the miner sector of Castilla-León; Sociologic analysis of the different development perspectives in the miner valleys of León”.
Research:
“Tailoring genomics to the needs of resource-poor farmers. Deducing lessons learnt in tailoring strategies”
The PhD research takes place in the further deployment of biotechnologies and genomics in the so called third world. The project emerges from the assumptions that the modernization and industrialization of agriculture has failed to reach subsistence agriculture and that it has certain negative consequences for agrarian societies (losing of biodiversity, intensive use of chemical inputs, creating dependence on large multinational concerns, losing farmers’ autonomy). Bio-Technologies are addressed as social constructions. The way in which biotechnologies are designed, developed and deployed is directly related to the actors involved on those processes and the choices made by those actors. However, the researcher recognizes that in the technological systems social and technical elements interact in the mutual shaping process of society and technology. Therefore, the research’s aim is to explore how the co-creation of social and technical elements in biotechnology and genomic research takes place and whether and how the co-creation can be “opened and reconstructed” by resource-poor farmers and local development organizations from the so called third world to socialize – democratize – biotechnologies and genomics.
This PhD project is part of an overarching research programme: “Genomics between prescriptive code and social construction: An analysis of the constraints and possibilities for social choices in genomics for developing countries”. Supervision: Prof. Guido Ruivenkamp (CTC - WUR), Prof. Joske Bunders (Athena Institute- VU Amsterdam), Prof. Steve Hughes (Egenis- Exeter University) and Dr. Joost Jongerden (CTC - WUR). Two other projects within this research programme are carried out by Eric Deibel and Wietse Vroom.
Publications:
Puente, Daniel. 2007. “Redesigning the Production of the Bacillus thuringiensis Bio-Pesticide within the Context of Subsistence Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh, India”. Asian Biotechnology and Development Review Vol.9 (3)
Puente, Daniel. 2007. “Searching democratic trajectories for the deployment of genomics within the potato crop systems in the Bolivian Andes”. Conference paper (forthcoming), DSA’s 2007 conference : “Connecting Science, Society and Development” .18-20 September 2007, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
Puente, Daniel, Ruivenkamp, Guido, Jongerden, Joost. 2006. “Redesigning the production of the Bacillus thuringiensis bio-pesticide”. Conference paper, Innogen’s Annual Conference: “Genomics for Development?; The Life Sciences and Poverty Reduction”. 5-6 September 2006, London, UK.
List of all publications
Contact:
Daniel Puente
CTC WUR - Bode 164
Hollandseweg 1
6706 KN Wageningen
The Netherlands
Daniel.Puente@wur.nl
Tel: +31 317 485052
Fax: +31 317 485453
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