The Politics of Global Information Sharing: Whose Cultural Agendas Are Being Advanced?

Abstract

Open-knowledge communities, the public domain and public policies protecting the global sharing of information and resources seek to counter the last decade of IP maximalization. Such movements aim to rebalance 'public' interests within IP discourse. Historically, dispossession of Indigenous persons in settler communities was concomitant with their exclusion from 'the public'. This has significant consequences for Indigenous peoples struggling to regain control over knowledge resources today. This article considers the imaginary inclusions that underlie Anglo-Australian intellectual property law and considers problems with redressing past injustice by defining Indigenous difference in terms of a cultural exception within intellectual property law.

A Laboratory as the Infrastructure of Engagement: Epistemological Reflections

“…While open access to resources is the desirable movement in the Western countries, in other regions it meets with uncertainty towards opening public access to indigenous cultural heritage data; e.g. in the context of Indigenous people in Australia (Bowrey and Anderson, 2009) and Africa (Piron, 2018). Therefore, network-based laboratories require The discussion on the significance and the role of humanities knowledge in addressing global challenges has again revived in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the form of the question: 'What can the humanities offer in the Covid era?'…”

Studying up (and down) the cultural heritage preservation agenda: Observations from Romania

“…Bowery and Anderson further state: The denial of complex local and global historical processes that factor into the creation of Indigenous identities often results in a reliance on imperially informed dualism of indigenous/non-indigenous, developing/developed or Western/non-Western that serves to create a sense of ‘otherness’ when referring to Indigenous communities. (2009: 490)…”

Hierarchy, complicity and culture in the library and information science preservation agenda: Observations from Romania

“…The term indigenous itself is problematic, as it was used to replace terms like ‘primitive’ and ‘tribal’, which Purcell (1998: 259) explains were ‘both loosely used to designate all seemingly culturally homogenous, non-Caucasian groups encountered as Europeans expanded into the so-called non-Western world’. Though indigenous may be a term with a ‘less hegemonic connotation’ (Purcell, 1998: 259), the term indigenous continues to be inaccurately equated with people who have ‘a homogenous, pan-identity’ (Bowery and Anderson, 2009: 488) or whose lifestyles have an ‘apparent static “boundedness’’’(Bowery and Anderson, 2009: 490). But most anthropologists would agree that what we characterize as indigenous knowledge is neither static nor bounded nor easily definable (Bowery and Anderson, 2009; Purcell, 1998; Sillitoe, 1998).…”

“…Though indigenous may be a term with a ‘less hegemonic connotation’ (Purcell, 1998: 259), the term indigenous continues to be inaccurately equated with people who have ‘a homogenous, pan-identity’ (Bowery and Anderson, 2009: 488) or whose lifestyles have an ‘apparent static “boundedness’’’(Bowery and Anderson, 2009: 490). But most anthropologists would agree that what we characterize as indigenous knowledge is neither static nor bounded nor easily definable (Bowery and Anderson, 2009; Purcell, 1998; Sillitoe, 1998). Sillitoe (1998: 232–233) further adds that: ‘Indigenous knowledge is not locally homogenous.…”