Abstract

Agricultural pesticides are used in increasing quantities and frequency on potato crops on PEI. In 1995, many Island residents began asking questions about the impacts of these chemicals on their human and environmental health. However, what soon became apparent to Island residents, was that speaking out and presenting counter-perspectives about agricultural practices and the Island's agroeconomy resulted in social and economic marginalisation. Through the application of two complementary theoretical frameworks, discourse analysis and historical materialism, I reveal how and why pesticides continue to be used in increasing quantities on PEI, despite scientific evidence pointing to their detrimental human and environmental health effects. The methodology pursued--Internet based research--is an attempt to stretch the place setting of anthropological inquiry and to demonstrate that by using the Internet, anthropologists can perform holistic research and make significant contributions to the discipline.