IP, Gender & Traditional Cultural Expressions

A call for papers has been issued for an upcoming event on intellectual property rights, gender and traditional cultural expressions. Abstracts for papers are due on 18 February.

The 1 April symposium is sponsored by American University Washington College of Law’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, Women and the Law Program, and Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law. It is in collaboration with Boatema Boateng (University of California, San Diego) and Lorraine Aragon (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; 2011 National Humanities Center Fellow)

“Since colonial times, the specific cultural productions of discrete human communities have been systematically under-valued and relegated to the status of ‘naturally occurring raw materials’ in legal and economic regimes,” the course materials said.

“In many places, women are deemed to be the most important practitioners and custodians of certain old arts, with many cultural ‘traditions’ being passed primarily or exclusively from one generation of women to the next,” it said. “Therefore, the consequences of introducing IP regimes in this area may have special significance for women and their communities, or may reflect underlying assumptions about gender, women’s proper role in decolonization and development, and the distributive consequences of IP regimes. This workshop seeks to examine those questions in the context of the larger discussion about propertization of traditional cultural expressions.”

“We welcome projects at all stages of conceptualization and development,” it said, “specifically those that draw on the insights of multiple disciplines, including cultural anthropology, gender studies, post-colonial studies, and law. Presenters may describe a work in progress, rather than present formal conclusions.”

Proposals (of approximately 500 words) should be received by 18 February and notifications will be made by March 1. Travel assistance funds will be available for participants without institutional support. Workshop papers will be strongly considered for publication in the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law’s annual IP/Gender Volume.

The full call for papers, the abstract submission form, and event information are available at: http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/events/2011-ip/gender