Several municipalities across Costa Rica have adopted “transgenic-free territory” ordinances, joining similar communities worldwide in declaring themselves free from genetically engineered organisms such as transgenic seeds. Through ethnography of antitransgenic activism, I describe the rise of transgenic-free territories to examine the relationship between transnational activist networks and place-based struggles. I suggest that activist networks and the transgenic-free territory designation respond to processes of globalization that have reorganized the material and discursive relations between capital and nature, and I show why such territories have gained significance as a defense of sovereignty, place, and even life itself.
