Experts and social movements in the circulation of academic knowledge

The main theme of my contribution is the circulation of knowledge through the interaction between academics and extra-academic collective actors during a scientific and environmental controversy. Environmental problems are a domain where this interaction between academic and extra-academic actors often occurs. My research focuses on the processes of pathologisation of the Olive Quick Decline Syndrome in Puglia (Italy), where the construction of a pathology became the cause of a conflict among different expert groups, social movements and authorities. In 2013, the plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa (Xf) was detected in olive trees affected by severe declines and desiccations. Emergency phytosanitary measures started to be set up soon after. Over the following years, eradication and containment measures were implemented. Such measures, like the removal of infected plants and the use of pesticides, were strongly criticised and opposed by different local civic society organisations that organised in a socio-environmental movement called “Il Popolo degli Ulivi”. In addition to opposing mandatory phytosanitary measures, this movement has gradually developed an articulated critique towards the academic knowledge produced on 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 and abiotic factors, as well as social, political and economic factors. This movement has also organised an informal network of academics coming that backed and sustained their critiques and their call for a “360° research” on the pathology to find a cure for the diseased trees. My research on this case study is based on a two-year fieldwork in which I participated in meetings, conferences and seminars and conducted in-depth interviews with activists, academics and experts. I will focus on how Il Popolo Degli Ulivi’s members have epistemically reconstructed the aetiology of the pathology and reappropriated political spaces of scientific agency. Furthermore, I will 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. With my case study, I propose some insights on the influence of scientific controversies on the circulation of academic knowledge.