Reinventing Hoodia

Download or read book Reinventing Hoodia written by Laura A. Foster and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2017-09-18 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Native to the Kalahari Desert, Hoodia gordonii is a succulent plant known by generations of Indigenous San peoples to have a variety of uses: to reduce hunger, increase energy, and ease breastfeeding. In the global North, it is known as a natural appetite suppressant, a former star of the booming diet industry. In Reinventing Hoodia, Laura Foster explores how the plant was reinvented through patent ownership, pharmaceutical research, the self-determination efforts of Indigenous San peoples, contractual benefit sharing, commercial development as an herbal supplement, and bioprospecting legislation. Using a feminist decolonial technoscience approach, Foster argues that although patent law is inherently racialized, gendered, and Western, it offered opportunities for Indigenous San peoples, South African scientists, and Hoodia growers to make unequal claims for belonging within the shifting politics of South Africa. This radical interdisciplinary and intersectional account of the multiple materialities of Hoodia illuminates the co-constituted connections between law, science, and the marketplace, while demonstrating how these domains value certain forms of knowledge and matter differently.

Download or read book Transboundary Heritage and Intellectual Property Law written by Patricia Covarrubia and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-11-30 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Intangible Heritage Convention was adopted by UNESCO in 2003, intangible cultural heritage has increasingly been an important subject of debate in international forums. As more countries implement the Intangible Heritage Convention, national policymakers and communities of practice have been exploring the use of intellectual property protection to achieve intangible cultural heritage safeguarding outcomes. This book examines diverse cultural heritage case studies from Indigenous communities and local communities in developing and industrialised countries to offer an interdisciplinary examination of topics at the intersection between heritage and property which present cross-border challenges. Analysing a range of case studies which provide examples of traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions, and genetic resources by a mixture of practitioners and scholars from different fields, the book addresses guidelines and legislation as well as recent developments about shared heritage to identify a progressive trend that improves the understanding of intangible cultural heritage. Considering all forms of intellectual property, including patents, copyright, design rights, trade marks, geographical indications, and sui generis rights, the book explores problems and challenges for intangible cultural heritage in crossborder situations, as well as highlighting positive relationships and collaborations among communities across geographical boundaries. Transboundary Heritage and Intellectual Property Law: Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage will be an important resource for practitioners, scholars, and students engaged in studying intangible cultural heritage, intellectual property law, heritage studies, and anthropology.

Download or read book Biotraffic written by Christopher Morris and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-10-15 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biotraffic explores the complex world of biological resource trade. It takes readers inside the contemporary Ciskei region of South Africa, a once-notorious apartheid “homeland” turned extractive hub for wild medicinal plants. Drawing from in-depth ethnographic and archival research, Christopher Morris examines the region’s trade in Pelargonium sidoides, a plant once contested as a tuberculosis treatment in early twentieth-century Europe and now an internationally marketed remedy for the common cold. The story of this trade links past and present, encapsulating a larger tale about colonial legacies and their intersection with global environmental governance ambitions. It also teems with a diverse cast of actors, from plant harvesters and pharmaceutical companies to activist NGOs and the chiefs who have become business partners with multinational drug firms. The book’s analysis extends beyond considering merely the extraction and commercialization of plant resources and offers a critical examination of how demand for therapeutics intertwines with broader struggles over land and political power in South Africa. Biotraffic illuminates how a distance-defying trade is reshaping the sociopolitical landscape of a region—a region grappling with apartheid's afterlives and the challenges of environmental and economic justice.

Download or read book The Scientific Imagination in South Africa written by William Beinart and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-20 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa provides a unique vantage point from which to examine the scientific imagination over the last three centuries, when its position on the African continent made it a staging post for Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonialism. In the eighteenth century, South African plants and animals caught the imagination of visiting Europeans. In the nineteenth century, science became central to imperial conquest, devastating wars, agricultural intensification and the exploitation of rich mineral resources. Scientific work both facilitated, and offered alternatives to, the imposition of segregation and apartheid in the twentieth century. William Beinart and Saul Dubow offer an innovative exploration of science and technology in this complex, divided society. Bridging a range of disciplines from astronomy to zoology, they demonstrate how scientific knowledge shaped South Africa's peculiar path to modernity. In so doing, they examine the work of remarkable individual scientists and institutions, as well as the contributions of leading politicians from Jan Smuts to Thabo Mbeki.

Download or read book Synthesizing Hope written by Anne Pollock and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-05-08 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synthesizing Hope opens up the material and social world of pharmaceuticals by focusing on an unexpected place: iThemba Pharmaceuticals. Founded in 2009 with a name taken from the Zulu word for hope, the small South African startup with an elite international scientific board was tasked with drug discovery for tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria. Anne Pollock uses this company as an entry point for exploring how the location of scientific knowledge production matters, not only for the raw materials, manufacture, licensing, and distribution of pharmaceuticals but also for the making of basic scientific knowledge. Consideration of this case exposes the limitations of global health frameworks that implicitly posit rich countries as the only sites of knowledge production. Analysis of iThemba identifies the problems inherent in global north/south divides at the same time as it highlights what is at stake in who makes knowledge and where. It also provides a concrete example for consideration of the contexts and practices of postcolonial science, its constraints, and its promise. Synthesizing Hope explores the many legacies that create conditions of possibility for South African drug discovery, especially the specific form of settler colonialism characterized by apartheid and resource extraction. Paying attention to the infrastructures and laboratory processes of drug discovery underscores the materiality of pharmaceuticals from the perspective of their makers, and tracing the intellectual and material infrastructures of South African drug discovery contributes new insights about larger social, political, and economic orders.

Download or read book Lion's Share written by Veit Erlmann and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-28 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of apartheid, South Africa undertook an ambitious revision of its intellectual property system. In Lion’s Share Veit Erlmann traces the role of copyright law in this process and its impact on the South African music industry. Although the South African government tied the reform to its postapartheid agenda of redistributive justice and a turn to a postindustrial knowledge economy, Erlmann shows how the persistence of structural racism and Euro-modernist conceptions of copyright threaten the viability of the reform project. In case studies ranging from antipiracy police raids and the crafting of legislation to protect indigenous expressive practices to the landmark lawsuit against Disney for its appropriation of Solomon Linda’s song "Mbube" for its hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” from The Lion King, Erlmann follows the intricacies of musical copyright through the criminal justice system, parliamentary committees, and the offices of a music licensing and royalty organization. Throughout, he demonstrates how copyright law is inextricably entwined with race, popular music, postcolonial governance, indigenous rights, and the struggle to create a more equitable society.

Download or read book Transformative Innovation in Times of Change written by Erika Kraemer-Mbula and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2024-10-04 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely collection full of astute insights and critical analysis that helps to fill gaps in the literature on the dynamics and potential for innovation on the African continent. The COVID-19 crises brought into sharp focus the cross-cutting nature of science, technology and innovation (STI). Policy-makers, beyond those responsible for innovation policy, were suddenly required to effectively mobilise STI for a whole range of functions. This included science for decision-making as well as the identification and deployment of a wide range of innovations. The results of these efforts are mixed and explored in this volume in greater depth by a cohort of leading continental researchers. This collection is an essential primer for policymakers and researchers who wish to unlock transformative innovation for social and economic benefit. Imraan Patel, Deputy Director-General: Research Development and Support, Department of Science and Innovation, South Africa This book provides a thought-provoking and rich analysis of what COVID-19 meant for Africa. It is very timely because the continent needs to prepare for future shocks. This book goes to the heart of the needed policy response. It is not just about resilience but about transformation; about redirecting economies and societies towards addressing a wide range of economic social, and environmental challenges. It explores the role of innovation, including technological, social, frugal and other forms of bottom-up innovation. A must read for academics and policy-makers who care about the future of Africa and the world Prof. Johan Schot, Global History and Sustainability Transitions, Utrecht Centre for Global Challenges, Utrecht University, and Visiting Professor University of Johannesburg