Understanding Rights, Ownership, and Stewardship / Kim Christen

This study path introduces learners to Traditional Knowledge Labels and how to explore copyright, access, and use issues related to developing tools for Indigenous communities and cultural objects. 

By Dr. Kim Christen, Director, Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation, Washington State University

Learning Objectives

• Explain how Traditional Knowledge Labels function in relation to standard copyright.
• Explain how Traditional Knowledge Labels provide a different way for Indigenous communities to promote their views of access and use of their cultural materials.
• Gain a perspective on the exclusion of Indigenous systems of ownership and stewardship from mainstream intellectual property rights systems (copyright, patents).
• Gain insight about how Indigenous systems of stewardship differ from Western notions of ownership.

This study path combines two activities:

• Reflection/discussion prompt

• Assignment

Activities

Reflection/discussion prompt

This assignment asks students to engage with the Local Contexts initiative and particularly the Traditional Knowledge Labels in order to understand the contours of access and ownership in relation to Indigenous peoples’ cultural materials. 

In small groups, go to the Local Contexts website and read the text and watch the video in the “About” section. Discuss in your group who the audience(s) is/are for the Local Contexts initiative, and describe the goals of Local Context. Then go to the Traditional Knowledge (TK) Label