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The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) Project is a seven-year international research initiative based at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, Canada. [1] IPinCH's work explores the rights, values, and responsibilities of material culture, [2] cultural knowledge, and the practice of heritage research. The project is directed by Dr. George P. Nicholas (Simon Fraser University), co-developed with Julie Hollowell (Indiana University) and Kelly Bannister (University of Victoria) and is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's (SSHRC) major collaborative research initiatives (MCRI) program.
IPinCH is an international collaboration of scholars, students, heritage professionals, community members, policy makers, and Indigenous organizations. [3] The Research Team [4] includes fifty-one leading scholars and professionals, one hundred and three Associates, [5] sixteen Fellows, [6] and thirty partnering organizations, [7] representing Canada, Australia, United States, New Zealand, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Germany, and Switzerland. The project's organizational partners range from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), to Parks Canada, to Indigenous groups including the Penobscot Nation of Maine and the Moriori of Rekohu (Chatham Islands, New Zealand).
The project serves as both a practical resource and a network of support for communities and researchers engaged in cultural heritage work. Topics of research include the theoretical, ethical, and practical implications of commodification, appropriation, and other about the past, and how these may affect communities, researchers, and other stakeholders.
The 7-year project began in 2008 with a $2.5 million grant from the Major Collaborative Research Initiatives program of Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. [8] About one-fourth of the project budget is reserved for student fellowships [9] and research support, and one-fourth for community-based heritage research for case studies [10] related to the project themes.
The IPinCH project initially had three components:
As of March 2016, eight of the twelve community initiatives have been completed and the final reports are available on the IPinCH website [11] (for details on IPinCH's Community Initiatives, please see below). To accommodate broadening research interests and developments, IPinCH Working Groups have been reconceptualized as Research Themes [12] (see section below on Research Themes). The knowledge base (KB), [13] an online searchable database and archive containing scholarly and popular articles, documents and tools created by communities, global case studies, research protocols and legislation, and resources created by the IPinCH project, has been retired from the IPinCH website. A selection of KB material is available within Simon Fraser University's Institutional Repository Summit.
IPinCH values a collaborative approach and employs Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) [14] [15] [16] methods that engage the community in all aspects of the research process. In the CBIs, communities determine the research goals, which form for the foundation for the initiative, including the practical and theoretical outputs. After community review, the results of these initiatives will be made available to partner organizations and stakeholders, in order to assist them in refining their own policies and approaches.
Key features of a CBPR methodology include:
Twelve community initiatives received funding from IPinCH and a further five Special Initiatives have also been approved. The community initiatives address a range of pressing cultural heritage topics:
The MacFarlane Collection is a collection of 550 Inuvialuit items bought by Hudson's Bay Company trader Roderick MacFarlane in the mid-1800s for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. [17] Inuvialuit elders, youth, cultural experts, anthropologists and museum curators shared with one another their respective knowledge about the museum collection and documented the process. The project has encouraged interaction and engagement by the Inuvialuit with the objects in the MacFarlane Collection, supported by the creation of a virtual exhibit and searchable archive of the collection.
This case study focuses on the differences between Hopi notions of navoti ("traditional knowledge") and Euro-American understandings of intellectual property, and the implications of this difference in terms of managing cultural knowledge resources. This case study is working towards developing an official cultural heritage management guide for the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office and the Hopi Tribe.
This community initiative seeks understandings of heritage values from three participating Yukon First Nations: the Champagne & Aishihik First Nations, the Carcross-Tagish First Nation, and the Ta'an Kwach'än Council. This project will explore how the values of Yukon First Nations towards heritage resources differ from Western understandings, and will articulate and document what Indigenous heritage management practices look like on a practical level.
Integrating research findings and knowledge from our Community-Based Initiatives and other sources, the IPinCH Research Themes explore unique questions relating to intellectual property and heritage. Each group is led by at least two team members, as Research Theme Co-Chairs. Membership in these groups is open to all associated students, partnering organization representatives, co-investigators, associates, collaborators, research assistants, steering committee members, and community representatives.
How can processes of commodification be both harmful and beneficial? What tools and strategies can Indigenous communities and scholars use to deal with commodification concerns and opportunities? This theme covers complex topics such as the role of government and legislation in regulating cultural commodification, whether commodification can benefit disempowered communities, and the impact of treating human remains as commodities, whether in medical science or museums. Research theme co-chairs: Sven Ouzman (University of Pretoria) and Solen Roth (University of British Columbia).
There is an ongoing need for background information and case studies to help students and scholars think through the implications of community-based work. This theme also amalgamates resources to help foster balanced and mutually beneficial relationships between academic and community researchers and promote fair and culturally-appropriate uses of intellectual property. Research theme chairs: Kelly Bannister (University of Victoria), Julie Hollowell (Indiana University), Ian Lilley (University of Queensland), and John R. Welch (Simon Fraser University).
The Intellectual Property Issues has been the recipient of numerous notable awards and recognitions:
The Inuvialuit or Western Canadian Inuit are Inuit who live in the western Canadian Arctic region. They, like all other Inuit, are descendants of the Thule who migrated eastward from Alaska. Their homeland – the Inuvialuit Settlement Region – covers the Arctic Ocean coastline area from the Alaskan border, east through the Beaufort Sea and beyond the Amundsen Gulf which includes some of the western Canadian Arctic Islands, as well as the inland community of Aklavik and part of Yukon. The land was demarked in 1984 by the Inuvialuit Final Agreement.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, often colloquially pronounced 'shirk' is a Canadian federal research-funding agency that promotes and supports post-secondary research and training in the humanities and social sciences. It is one of three major federal granting agencies that together are referred to as the "Tri-Council" or "Tri-Agency.
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by society.
Traditional knowledge (TK), indigenous knowledge (IK), folk knowledge, and local knowledge generally refer to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities.
Public participation, also known as citizen participation or patient and public involvement, is the inclusion of the public in the activities of any organization or project. Public participation is similar to but more inclusive than stakeholder engagement.
Indigenous decolonization describes ongoing theoretical and political processes whose goal is to contest and reframe narratives about indigenous community histories and the effects of colonial expansion, cultural assimilation, exploitative Western research, and often though not inherent, genocide. Indigenous people engaged in decolonization work adopt a critical stance towards western-centric research practices and discourse and seek to reposition knowledge within Indigenous cultural practices.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to intellectual property:
Mark Turin is a British anthropologist, linguist and occasional radio broadcaster who specializes in the Himalayas and the Pacific Northwest. From 2014–2018, he served as Chair of the First Nations and Endangered Languages Program and Acting Co-Director of the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, cross-appointed between the Department of Anthropology and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies. He currently serves as the Interim Editor of the journal Pacific Affairs.
Indigenous intellectual property is a term used in national and international forums to describe intellectual property that is "collectively owned" by various Indigenous peoples, and by extension, their legal rights to protect specific such property. This property includes cultural knowledge of their groups and many aspects of their cultural heritage and knowledge, including that held in oral history. In Australia, the term Indigenous cultural and intellectual property, abbreviated as ICIP, is commonly used.
Henrietta Marrie is a Gimuy Walubara Yidinji elder, an Australian Research Council Fellow and Honorary Professor with the University of Queensland.
Indigenous archaeology is a sub-discipline of Western archaeological theory that seeks to engage and empower indigenous people in the preservation of their heritage and to correct perceived inequalities in modern archaeology. It also attempts to incorporate non-material elements of cultures, like oral traditions, into the wider historical narrative. This methodology came out of the global anti-colonial movements of the 1970s and 1980s led by aboriginal and indigenous people in settler-colonial nations, like the United States, Canada, and Australia. Major issues the sub-discipline attempts to address include the repatriation of indigenous remains to their respective peoples, the perceived biases that western archaeology's imperialistic roots have imparted into its modern practices, and the stewardship and preservation of indigenous people's cultures and heritage sites. This has encouraged the development of more collaborative relationships between archaeologists and indigenous people and has increased the involvement of indigenous people in archaeology and its related policies.
Digital repatriation is the return of items of cultural heritage in a digital format to the communities from which they originated. The term originated from within anthropology, and typically referred to the creation of digital photographs of ethnographic material, which would then be made available to members of the originating culture. However, the term has also been applied to museum, library, and archives collections, and can refer not only to digital photographs of items, but also digital collections and virtual exhibits including 3D scans and audio recordings. Intangible cultural heritage, which includes traditional skills and knowledge, can also be digitally repatriated to communities.
Joan Margaret Gero was an American archaeologist and pioneer of feminist archaeology. Her research focused on gender and power issues in prehistory, particularly in the Andean regions of Argentina and Peru.
Michael I. Asch is an anthropologist in Canada. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta and is currently working as a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria. Much of his work over the years has focused on issues of Indigenous rights and Indigenous-Settler relations in Canada.
Cecily Nicholson is a Canadian poet, arts administrator, independent curator, and activist. Originally from Ontario, she is now based in British Columbia. As a writer and a poet, Nicholson has published collections of poetry, contributed to collected literary works, presented public lectures and readings, and collaborated with numerous community organizations. As an arts administrator, she has worked at the Surrey Art Gallery in Surrey, British Columbia, and the artist-run centre Gallery Gachet in Vancouver.
Deanna Helen Reder is a Cree-Métis associate professor of English and the Chair of Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University. Reder was elected a member of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada in 2018. As a faculty member at Simon Fraser University, she was a founding member of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association (ILSA) and served on the council from 2015 to 2018. In 2019 she helped establish the Indigenous Editors Association (IEA) and served as its "Past-President" from 2020 to 2021.
Nancy T. Gallini is an economist, professor emeritus, researcher, and author. She is a professor emeritus at the Vancouver School of Economics based in the University of British Columbia. She has served on multiple editorial boards such as American Economic Review, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Economic Literature and the Journal of Industrial Economics. In 2008, Dr. Gallini was appointed as a member to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. From 2011-2014 Dr. Gallini served on the executive council for the Canadian Economic Association. Her research "focuses on the economics of intellectual property, competition policy, strategic alliances, licensing, and optimal patent policy". She is the co-author of Competition Policy and Intellectual Property Rights in the Knowledge-Based Economy. She has won numerous awards and a fellowship throughout her career. She has received 8 research grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. These grants are one SSHRC Leave Fellowship, one SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship and six SSHRC Research Grants.
Marianne Boelscher Ignace is a Canadian linguist and anthropologist. Married into the Shuswap people, she is a Full professor in the departments of Linguistics and Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University (SFU), and Director of SFU's Indigenous Languages Program and First Nations Language Centre. In 2020, Ignace was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for her work in revitalizing and preserving indigenous languages.
Jackie Dawson is a Canadian academic who holds the Canada Research Chair in Environment, Society and Policy. Dawson is also co-Scientific Director of ArcticNet, where she is currently a member of the Board of Directors.
Indigenous librarianship is a distinct field of librarianship that brings Indigenous approaches to areas such as knowledge organization, collection development, library and information services, language and cultural practices, and education. The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences states that Indigenous librarianship emerged as a "distinct field of practice and an arena for international scholarship in the late twentieth century bolstered by a global recognition of the value and vulnerability of Indigenous knowledge systems, and of the right of Indigenous peoples to control them."