[Reader-list] Re: Understanding the Patenting of Traditional Knowledge-In response

[Danny Butt]

Greetings Jeebesh/all

Thanks for this thoughtful response.

Firstly, my apologies if in my haste I suggested that you were translating
open source ideas into traditional knowledge practices. You were of course
very careful to outline your notes as an intervention into a property
discourse, which as you clearly point out is not a traditional form of
knowledge.  I agree with you strongly on this.

I guess my question then becomes about the perspective from which we engage
in cross-cultural dialogue about the political dynamics of traditional
knowledge, when custodians of traditional knowledge identify 'property' as
the most useful framework to protect their control, when it is under threat
from neocolonial interests.

The first question which comes to mind immediately is our desire to have a
conversation about traditional knowledge and its implications. That is a
whole new discussion in itself and I won't pursue it except to say that I
have conversations with owners of traditional knowledge and this does come
up. I also think the dialogue holds great potential for disrupting some
pernicious aspects of transnational capitalism, though I am still unsure
about the ethics of my role in trafficking between those particular
discussions  about traditional knowledge and a broader political project.

But an implication is this: we acknowledge indigenous self-determination as
a significant part of international anti-capitalist protest activity, and an
important social movement. But what if, as a strategy, indigenous groups
claim ownership of their traditional knowledge as 'property' (whether or not
we think it equates to what we understand to be property). If we take a
resolutely 'anti-property' stance affect our ability to affiliate with those
struggles? 

Or, to put it differently, we can look at colonial histories in this part of
the world as including successive demands upon traditional knowledge owners
to "open up" access to their traditional knowledge, under claims that
'unnecessarily protective' measures will have a negative effect on the
communities which produce this knowledge. Can we be confident in our denial
of 'property' we are not asking the same thing? The logic of unintended
consequences suggests to me that it is an area we tread softly in, despite
the urgency of capitalist encroachments on traditional knowledge forms.

I'm not sure if this is still on track, but in any case these are the
questions your response raised - I look forward to more dialogue around
these issues!

Cheers

Danny

Jeebesh Bagchi wrote on 31/1/04 12:51 PM:

> Thanks Danny for opening up the question of `freedom` in open source. I would
> agree with you that the open source idea of `freedom` would be difficult to
> apply in areas of `embodied knowledge practices`. (1)
> 
> My response was not so much about how traditional knowledge will be or can be
> or is `protected` by it's practitioners but how IP regimes intervenes within
> these knowledge practices and the story then on.
> 
> After IP intervention, a new `disembodied-mobile` knowledge form would emerge
> and would be protected through `no end user rights to reproduce or modify`.
> It is within this context that user/producer models can help challenge this
> dominant form. 
> 
> I would never propogate (would shudder) the translation of `open source` ideas
> as an intervention into `traditional` forms of knowledge production,
> circulation or sustanance. Similarly it is IP regime i refer to when i talk
> about end user being an frozen concept within it.
> 
> On the other hand I am not so sure whether we can extrapolate the conceptual
> and legal framework of `property` into earlier practices. There is a danger
> there. It makes `property` a cultural-legal universal outside the social
> arrangement within which it emerged. This is one area i am at present very
> cautious and unsure about.
> 
> Though i agree that there are various complicated arrangements and protocols
> within which knowledge is sustained, practiced and transmitted. And these
> protocols are also about `custodianship` and `withholding`. And these can be
> harsh in its `exclusionary` frameworks. But to call these arrangements
> property would be difficult. If we take the example of `classical music` in
> South Asia, we do see complex social arrangements, codes and protocols that
> helped it survive, elaborate and grow. You have to learn through practice
> under guidance and then only you will be able to belong to it. But i would
> not think it ever articulated a conceptual framework called `property`.
> 
> But, Danny let me add a caveat to your arguments. I think that the problem
> with IP regimes along with one of artificial construction of scarcity is one
> of what Shuddha calls the `unauthorised interlocutors`. This `unauthorised
> interlocutors` could be a problem in other forms of knowledge practices. In
> Mahabharata a brilliant archer called Ekalavya had to give us his thumb for
> the story to continue. He could not prove his authentication in front of the
> `authenticators`. (more of that Sarai reader 04 ....to be out next
> month...(..)....
> 
> best and thanks for your lovely response...looking forward to carrying forward
> our collective thinking...
> 
> Salaam
> Jeebesh
> 
> 1) We would also have to think harder on the american constitutionalism basis
> of lot of the arguments to ground open source ideas of freedom. Martin Hardie
> has written about this in the forthcoming Sarai Reader 04. (forthcoming)

-- 
http://www.dannybutt.net