Karine Peschard is Research associate at the Graduate Institute’s Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, on a SNF-funded project entitled 'Bringing the seed wars to the courtroom: legal activism and the governance of plant genetic resources in Brazil and India'. Her research, at the intersection of legal anthropology and agrarian studies, centres on social movements, biotechnology, biodiversity and intellectual property (IP) rights. Since 2011, she has conducted comparative research in Brazil and India on the implementation of farmers’ rights legislation, and on the legal conflicts surrounding IP regimes for biotech crops. Karine holds a PhD in Anthropology from McGill University.
SWISS NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (SNF) GRANT
'Bringing the seed wars to the courtroom: Legal activism and the governance of plant genetic resources in Brazil and India' (Grant number 100017_162398)
Peer-reviewed articles
2020. "Keeping seeds in our hands’: the rise of seed activism”. Journal of Peasant Studies 47(4): 613-647. (lead author, with Shalini Randeria).
2020. “Taking Monsanto to court: legal activism around intellectual property in Brazil and India”. Journal of Peasant Studies 47(4): 792-819. (lead author, with Shalini Randeria).
2017. “Seed wars and farmers’ rights: comparative perspectives from Brazil and India”. Journal of Peasant Studies 44(1): 144-168.
2014. “Farmers’ rights and food sovereignty: critical insights from India”. Journal of Peasant Studies 41(6): 1085-1108.
2012. “Unexpected discontent: exploring new developments in Brazil's transgenics controversy”. Canadian Journal of Development Studies 33(3): 326-337.
Book chapters
In press. Transnational agrarian movements, food sovereignty, and legal mobilization. In Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology, eds. M.-C. Foblets, M. Sapignoli, M. Goodale and O. Zenker. Oxford: Oxford University Press (with P. Claeys).
2020. Seed wars and farmers’ rights: comparative perspectives from Brazil and India. In Intellectual property and agriculture, eds. B. Sherman and S. Chapman. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
2019. Propriedade industrial sobre sementes: contestação judicial no Brasil e na Índia. In Desenvolvimento e transformações agrárias: BRICS, competição e cooperação no Sul global, ed. Sérgio Sauer, 157-186. São Paulo: Editora Outras Expressões (lead author, with S. Randeria).
2014. Turning of the tide: Rising discontent over transgenic crops in Brazil. In The neoliberal regime in the agri-food sector: Crisis, resilience and restructuring, eds. S.A. Wolf and A. Bonanno, 170-190. London: Earthscan/Routledge.
2014. Descontento inesperado: Mutaciones en la polémica sobre cultivos transgénicos en Brasil. In La dieta neoliberal: globalización y biotecnología agrícola en América latina, ed. G. Otero, 279-296. Mexico City: M.A. Porrúa.
Other publications
2019. Monsanto wins $7.7b lawsuit in Brazil – but farmers’ fight to stop its amoral royalty system will continue. The Conversation.
2021. Searching for flexibility - Why parties to the 1978 Act of the UPOV Convention have not acceded to the 1991 Act. APBREBES.
Books
Under contract: Seed Activism: Patent Politics and Litigation in the Global South.