Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:12:07.806Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intellectual Property Rights Systems and the Assemblage of Local Knowledge Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 June 2008

Saskia Vermeylen ,
George Martin  and
Roland Clift
Saskia Vermeylen
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Lancaster. Email: s.vermeylen@lancaster.ac.uk
George Martin
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Montclair State University. Email: martingt@mail.montclair.edu
Roland Clift
Affiliation:
Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey. Email: r.clift@surrey.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The mounting loss of the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples presents environmental as well as ethical issues. Fundamental among these is the sustainability of indigenous societies and their ecosystems. Although the commercial expropriation of traditional knowledge grows, rooted in a global, corporate application of intellectual property rights (IPRs), the survival of indigenous societies becomes more problematic. One reason for this is an unresolved conflict between two perspectives. In the modernist view, traditional knowledge is a tool to use (or discard) for the development of indigenous society, and therefore it must be subordinated to Western science. Alternatively, in the postmodernist view, it is harmonious with nature, providing a new paradigm for human ecology, and must be preserved intact. We argue that this encumbering polarization can be allayed by shifting from a dualism of traditional and scientific knowledge to an assemblage of local knowledge, which is constituted by the interaction of both in a third space. We argue that IPR can be reconfigured to become the framework for creating such a third space.

Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 201 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, A., and Theodossopoulos, D.. Land, Law and Environment: Mythical Land, Legal Boundaries. London: Pluto, 2000.Google Scholar
Agrawal, A. “Dismantling the Divide between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge.” Development and Change 26 (1995): 413–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antweiler, C. “Local Knowledge Research Methods.” Unpublished Paper. Germany: University of Trier, 2002.Google Scholar
Argyrou, V.The Logic of Environmentalism: Anthropology, Ecology and Postcoloniality. New York: Berghahn, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barsh, R.L. “How do you Patent a Landscape? The Perils of Dichotomizing Cultural and Intellectual Property.” International Journal of Cultural Property 8 (1999): 14–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berkes, F.Sacred Ecology: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Resource Management. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis, 1999.Google Scholar
Berkes, F., Colding, J., and Folke, C.. “Rediscovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge as Adaptive Management.” Ecological Applications 10 (2000): 1251–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, T. “‘As Long as the Grass Grows’: Representing Indigenous Claims.” In Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights: Legal Obstacles and Innovative Solutions, edited by Riley, M., 3–25. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Blakeney, M. “The Protection of Traditional Knowledge under Intellectual Property Law.” European Intellectual Property Review 22 (2000): 251–61.Google Scholar
Brown, M. “Can Culture Be Copyrighted?” Current Anthropology 39 (1998): 193–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, M. “Heritage Trouble: Recent Work on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Property.” International Journal of Cultural Property 12 (2005): 40–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, M.Who Owns Native Culture? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Chambers, D., and Gillespie, R.. “Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge.” Osiris 15 (2000): 221–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christen, K. “Gone Digital: Aboriginal Remix and the Cultural Commons.” International Journal of Cultural Property 12 (2005): 315–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cleveland, D., and Soleri, D.. “Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge of Plant Breeding.” In Participating in Development: Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge, edited by Sillitoe, P., Bicker, A., and Pottier, J., 206–34. London: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Coombe, R.J. “Intellectual Property, Human Rights & Sovereignty: New Dilemmas in International Law Posed by the Recognition of Indigenous Knowledge and the Conservation of Biodiversity.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 6 (1998): 69–115.Google Scholar
Curry, J.M., and McGuire, S.. Community on Land: Community, Ecology and the Public Interest. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.Google Scholar
Davis, Michael H. “Some Realism about Indigenism.” Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law 11 (2003): 815–30.Google Scholar
Dutfield, G.Intellectual Property Rights, Trade and Biodiversity: Seeds and Plant Varieties. London: Earthscan, 2002.Google Scholar
Ellen, R. “‘Deja Vu, All Over Again’, Again: Reinvention and Progress in Applying Local Knowledge to Development.” In Participating in Development: Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge, edited by Sillitoe, P., Bicker, A., and Pottier, J., 235–58. London: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Ellen, R. “From Ethno-Science to Science, or ‘What the Indigenous Knowledge Debate Tells Us about How Scientists Define Their Project’.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 4 (2004): 409–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellen, R., and Harris, H.. “Introduction.” In Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and Its Transformations: Critical Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Ellen, R., Parkes, P., and Bicker, A., 1–33. London: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
Ertman, M.M., and Williams, J.C.. Rethinking Commodification: Cases and Readings in Law and Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Escobar, A. “After Nature: Steps to an Antiessentialist Political Ecology.” Current Anthropology 40 (1999): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escobar, A. “Whose Knowledge, Whose Nature? Biodiversity, Conservation, and the Political Ecology of Social Movements.” Journal of Political Ecology 5 (1998): 53–82.Google Scholar
Feldman, S., and Welsh, R.. “Feminist Knowledge Claims, Local Knowledge, and Gender Divisions of Agricultural Labor: Constructing a Successor Science.” Rural Sociology 60 (1995): 23–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzpatrick, P.Modernism and the Grounds of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, J.Community Resources: Intellectual Property, International Trade and Protection of Traditional Knowledge. Hants: Ashgate Publishing, 2005.Google Scholar
Golinski, J.Making Natural Knowledge. Constructivism and the History of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Gough, J. “History, Representation, Globalisation and Indigenous Cultures: A Tasmanian Perspective.” In Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World, edited by Smith, C. and Ward, G., 89–107. St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2000.Google Scholar
Greene, S. “Indigenous People Incorporated? Culture as Politics, Culture as Property in Pharmaceutical Bioprospecting.” Current Anthropology 45 (2004): 211–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene, S. “Intellectual Property, Resources, or Territority? Reframing the Debate over Indigenous Rights, Traditional Knowledge, and Pharmaceutical Bioprospection.” In Truth Claims: Representation and Human Rights, edited by Bradley, M. and Petro, P., 229–49. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Halbert, D.J.Resisting Intellectual Property. Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2005.Google Scholar
Harding, S.Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Hassanein, N., and Kloppenburg, J.. “Where the Grass Grows Again: Knowledge Exchange in the Sustainable Agriculture Movement.” Rural Sociology 60 (1995): 721–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayden, C.When Nature Goes Public. The Making and Unmaking of Bioprospecting in Mexico. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Hess, D.Science & Technology In a Multicultural World: The Cultural Politics of Facts & Artifacts. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, D.Science Studies: An Advanced Introduction. New York: New York University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Knorr-Cetina, K.Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knorr-Cetina, K., and Mulkay, M.. “Emerging Principles in Social Studies of Science.” In Science Observed, edited by Knorr-Cetina, K. and Mulkay, M., 1–19. London: Sage Publications, 1983.Google Scholar
Latour, B. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. (C. Porter, trans.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Layton, R. “From Clan Symbol to Ethnic Emblem: Indigenous Creativity in a Connected World.” In Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World, edited by Smith, C. and Ward, G., 49–68. St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2000.Google Scholar
Leach, M., and Fairhead, J.. “Manners of Contestation: ‘Citizen Science’ and ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ in West Africa and the Caribbean.” International Social Science Journal 54 (2002): 299–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leistner, M. “Traditional Knowledge.” In Indigenous Heritage and Intellectual Property: Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, edited by von Lewinski, Silke, 49–149. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2004.Google Scholar
Martin, G., and Vermeylen, S.. “Intellectual Property, Indigenous Knowledge, and Biodiversity.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 16 (2005): 27–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milton, K.Environmentalism and Cultural Theory: Exploring the Role of Anthropology in Environmental Discourse. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Mire, Amina. “The Genealogy of Witchcraft: Colonialism and Modern Science.” In Postmodernism, Postcoloniality and African Studies, edited by Magubane, Zine, 81–97. Trenton: African World Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Mulligan, S.P. “For Whose Benefit? Limits to Sharing Benefits in the Bioprospecting ‘Regime’.” Environmental Politics 8 (1999): 35–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nel, P. “Indigenous Knowledge Systems: Contestation, Rhetorics and Space.” African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems 4 (2005): 2–14.Google Scholar
Nygren, A. “Local Knowledge in the Environment-Development Discourse.” Critique of Anthropology 19 (1999): 267–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parajuli, P. “Learning from Ecological Ethnicities: Toward a Plural Political Ecology of Knowledge.” In Indigenous Traditions and Ecology, edited by Grim, J., 559–89. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Posey, D. “Commodification of the Sacred through Intellectual Property Rights.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 83 (2002): 3–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Posey, D.Indigenous Knowledge and Ethics: A Darrell Posey Reader, edited by Plenderleith, K.. New York: Routledge, 2004.Google Scholar
Posey, D. “Upsetting the Sacred Balance. Can the Study of Indigenous Knowledge Reflect Cosmic Connectedness?” In Participating in Development: Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge, edited by Sillitoe, P., Bicker, A., and Pottier, J., 24–42. London: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Posey, D., and Dutfield, G.. Beyond Intellectual Property: Toward Traditional Resource Rights for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. Ottawa, Canada: International Development Research Centre, 1996.Google Scholar
Posey, D., and Dutfield, G.. “Plants, Patents and Traditional Knowledge: Ethical Concerns of Indigenous and Traditional Peoples.” In Patent Law, Ethics and Biotechnology, edited by Van Overwalle, G., 112–32. Brussels: Bruylant, 1998.Google Scholar
Pottier, J. “Negotiating Local Knowledge: An Introduction.” In Negotiating Local Knowledge, edited by Pottier, J., Bicker, A., and Sillitoe, P., 1–29. London: Pluto, 2003.Google Scholar
Pretorius, W. “TRIPS and Developing Countries: How Level Is the Playing Field?” In Global Intellectual Property Rights: Knowledge, Access and Development, edited by Drahos, P. and Mayne, R., 183–97. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ravetz, J.Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Riley, M.Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights. Legal Obstacles and Innovative Solutions. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Riley, M. “The Amerindian Rights Movement in Guyana and its Influence.” In Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights: Legal Obstacles and Innovative Solutions, edited by Riley, M., 99–123. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rousse, J.Knowledge and Power: Toward a Political Philosophy of Science. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Shiva, V.Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. Boston: South End Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Shiva, V.Protect or Plunder? Understanding Intellectual Property Rights. London: Zed Books, 2001.Google ScholarPubMed
Sillitoe, P. “Globalising Indigenous Knowledge.” In Participating in Development: Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge, edited by Sillitoe, P., Bicker, A., and Pottier, J., 108–38. London: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Sillitoe, P. “Participant Observation to Participatory Development: Making Anthropology Work.” In Participating in Development: Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge, edited by Sillitoe, P., Bicker, A., and Pottier, J., 1–23. London: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Simpson, T.Indigenous Heritage and Self-Determination: The Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Copenhagen: IWGIA, 1997.Google Scholar
Simpson, T., and Jackson, V.. “Effective Protection for Indigenous Cultural Knowledge: A Challenge for the Next Millennium.” Indigenous Affairs 3 (1998): 44–56.Google Scholar
Smith, C., Burge, H., and Ward, G.. “Globalisation and Indigenous Peoples: Threat or Empowerment.” In Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World, edited by Smith, C. and Ward, G., 1–26. St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2000.Google Scholar
Smith, G. “Protecting and Respecting Indigenous Knowledge.” In Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, edited by Battiste, M., 209–24. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Solomon, M. “Intellectual Property Rights and Indigenous Peoples' Rights and Responsibilities.” In Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights. Legal Obstacles and Innovative Solutions, edited by Riley, M, 221–50. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Stehr, N. “The Social and Political Control of Knowledge in Modern Society.” International Social Science Journal 55 (2003): 643–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunder, M. “IP3.” Stanford Law Review 59 (2006): 257–332.Google Scholar
Sunder, M. “Property in Personhood.” In Rethinking Commodification: Cases and Readings in Law and Culture, edited by Ertman, M. and Williams, J., 164–76. New York: New York University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Sunder, M. “The Invention of Traditional Knowledge.” Law and Contemporary Problems 70 (2007): 97–124.Google Scholar
Tucker, C. “Land, Tenure Systems, and Indigenous Intellectual Propert Rights.” In Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights. Legal Obstacles and Innovative Solutions, edited by Riley, M., 27–151. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Turnbull, D. “Local Knowledge and Comparative Scientific Traditions.” Knowledge & Policy 6 (1993–1994): 29–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turnbull, D. “Reframing Science and Other Local Knowledge Traditions.” Futures 29 (1997): 551–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vermeylen, S. “Between Law and Lore: The Tragedy of Traditional Knowledge.” PhD thesis. Guildford: University of Surrey, 2007.Google Scholar
Vermeylen, S. “Contextualising ‘Fair’ and ‘Equitable’: The San's Reflections on the Hoodia and Benefit Sharing Agreement.” Local Environment 12 (2007): 423–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vermeylen, S., and Martin, G.. “Land Rights, the Namibian San, and the Legacy of Colonialism.” XVI World Congress of Sociology, Durban, South Africa, July 23–29, 2006.Google Scholar
Wallner, F. “Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science: Contradiction or Cooperation?” African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems 4 (2005): 46–54.Google Scholar
Whitton, B. “Herder's Critique of the Enlightenment: Cultural Community versus Cosmopolitan Rationalism.” History and Theory 27 (1988): 146–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WIPO. Intellectual Property Needs and Expectations of Traditional Knowledge Holders. Report on Fact Finding Missions on Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge. Geneva: World Intellectual Property Organisation, 2001.Google Scholar
Wuthnow, J. “Deleuze in the Postcolonial: On Nomads and Indigenous Politics.” Feminist Theory 3 (2002): 182–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynberg, R. “Rhetoric, Realism and Benefit Sharing: Use of Traditional Knowledge of Hoodia Species in the Development of an Appetite Suppressant.” The Journal of World Intellectual Property 7 (2004): 851–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yearley, Steven. Making Sense of Science: Understanding the Social Study of Science. London: Sage, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar