TK, TCE, and Co.: the Path from Culture as a Commons to a Resource for International Negotiation

  • Regina Bendix Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Alemania
Keywords: WIPO; Resource nature of culture; Legal framework; Immaterial knowledge; Negotiation

Abstract

The acronyms in the title stand for ‘traditional knowledge” and “traditional cultureexpressions.” They are linguistic evidence of how vast components of cultural practiceshave been bundled in order to facilitate speaking about them in international negotiationsat the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The paper traces the pathof immaterial cultural knowledge from a dynamically changing repository available toall within a community to its potential selective passage to ownership and exclusiveeconomic use. There are numerous reasons that have fostered interests in legal protectionof selections of culture; one of them resides in the heritage-making process whichsingles out intangibles within culture as worthy of protection and celebration, anotheris the illicit use of traditional knowledges by non-native actors in various industries.Drawing on examples from WIPO sessions, the paper traces the difficult efforts togenerate definitions that lend themselves to draw up legal frameworks customary inintellectual property law, and calls for more vigorous participation of cultural scholarsin critically accompanying such normative developments.

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Published
2022-10-14
How to Cite
Bendix, R. (2022). TK, TCE, and Co.: the Path from Culture as a Commons to a Resource for International Negotiation. Cuadernos De antropología Social, (56), 25-39. https://doi.org/10.34096/cas.i56.12059