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SUMMARY:Banks\, Bunkers\, and Backup: Securing Crop Diversity from the Col
 d War through the Internet Age - Professor Helen Anne Curry\, Kranzberg Pr
 ofessor of the History of Technology\, Georgia Institute of Technology\, U
 SA
DTSTART:20221024T173000Z
DTEND:20221024T183000Z
UID:TALK178190@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Beverley Larner
DESCRIPTION:Present-day efforts to preserve endangered crop varieties emph
 asize "safety duplication"—a strategy better known as backup—as an ess
 ential step in conservation. Important collections of seeds or other plant
  genetic materials are copied\, in whole or part\, and sent to physically 
 distant sites to provide security in the case of local disaster. This talk
  traces the history of seed banking to understand how\, why and with what 
 consequences copying collections came to occupy this central place. The in
 tertwined histories of the central long-term seed storage facility of the 
 United States (opened in 1958) and the international seed conservation sys
 tem developed in the 1970s reveal how changing conceptions of security\, l
 inked to changing economic\, political and technological circumstances\, t
 ransformed both the guiding metaphors and the practices of seed conservati
 on. Seed banking gave way to seed backup: whereas early long-term cold sto
 rage facilities vested security in robust infrastructures and the capaciti
 es of professional staff\, between the 1960s and 1990s\, this configuratio
 n gave way to one in which security was situated in copies rather than cap
 acities. This history ultimately raises questions about the security promi
 sed and achieved through present-day infrastructures for crop genetic reso
 urces conservation.
LOCATION:Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre\, Department of Chemistry
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