Experts and Social Movements in The Circulation of Academic Knowledge

The main theme of my contribution is the circulation of knowledge during a scientific controversy concerning a plant pathology. Such environmental problems are generally characterized by the interaction between academics and other interest groups that have an impact not only on the whole process of knowledge production, but also on the application of techno-scientific data in the resolution of social, economic and environmental issues. My research focuses on the processes of pathologization and medicalization of the Olive Quick Decline Syndrome in Puglia (Italy), when a construction of a pathology becomes the lieu of a conflict in which different expert groups, social movements and authorities clash over the definition of a problem and the planning of its solution. In 2013 the plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa (Xf) was detected in olive trees affected by severe declines and desiccations. Soon after the first detection, emergency phytosanitary measures started to be set up. Over the following years, eradication and containment measures were implemented in order to halt the spread of the bacterium and its insect vectors. Such measures, like the removal of infected plants and the use of pesticides, were strongly criticized and opposed by different local civic society organizations that organized in a socio-environmental movement called "Popolo degli Ulivi". In addition to opposing mandatory phytosanitary measures, this movement has over the years developed an articulated critique toward the academic knowledge produced on the plant pathology and the local and European politics of research formed around it. In their view Xf is not the cause of the desiccation, which instead is caused by a wide range of biotic (insects, fungi) and abiotic factors (soil depletion and soil pollution), as well as social, political and economic factors. Furthermore, this movement has over the years organized an informal network of academics coming from agronomical, social and juridical sciences, that backed and sustained their critiques and their call for a "360° research" on the pathologyin order to find a cure for the diseased trees. Through the theoretical perspective of STS, Sociology of Expertise and Experience, Sociology of Ignorance and Social Movements Studies, my research is based on a two-year fieldwork in which we participated in meetings, conferences and seminars held by social movements, and conducted in-depth interviews to activists, academics and experts. In this contribution I focus on how "Popolo Degli Ulivi" and its members have epistemically reconstructed the aetiology of the pathology and re-appropriated political spaces of scientific agency. Furthermore, we show how this socio-environmental movement used academic knowledge and interacted with academics and experts to reclaim areas of research that, in their view, are left unexplored and ignored.