Timing GMO: discursive constructions of temporality in local discussions of a global issue

 In this article we study the relationship of temporality and ideology through examples from a local controversy over field testing of genetically modified maize in a rural area in the north of Denmark. The primary focus of our study is on ways in which participants frame time on different timescales, ranging from representations of time in the present moment to representations of processes at shorter or longer timescales in the past or future. Looking at discourse from a temporal perspective opens up to simultaneous spatial scales where a global issue finds recontextualized meanings in local events, and observations of this nature leads us to argue that temporality does important ideological and rhetorical work in the text examples discussed. Our data stems from three sources: a focus-group interview with local citizens, a video-recording of an anti-GMO-demonstration in a local town in Denmark, and a recording of a public meeting of farmers who consider possible advantages of growing GM crops.