In What Form Does Global Capital Flow Leave Behind Memories? The Story of the Apple Snail Caught Between the Green Revolution and the Organic Food Movement

Abstract

Focusing on a study of Taiwan’s United News Daily archive and the shifting discourses of the Green Revolution and the organic food movement, the project analyzes the narrative frameworks produced on the apple snail (Pomacea canaliculata) in Taiwan. Apple snail has become invasive to many East Asian countries since the 1980s; it is considered among the world’s 100 most invasive species. During the era of the Green Revolution, the economy of killing the apple snail with pesticide was generated by a narrative of how greedy merchants imported invasive apple snail and led to the systematic disruption of Taiwan’s ecology. The paper explores how the organic food movement responded to and was shaped by such a narrative of innocence lost, and emphasizes the importance of going beyond the hyper-real narratives of irreparable ecological destructions by recognizing sites of memories left behind by global capital flow.