Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T03:31:11.923Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dialectic of Creativity and Ownership in Intellectual Property Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2009

Andrew Moutu
Andrew Moutu
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide. Email: amoutu@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ownership is often understood merely as a function of social relations, that is, it emerges merely because of the relations between people with respect to the things that they own. Concomitantly ownership is also seen as being dependent upon creativity to bring its force into motion. Far from dismissing such a view of ownership, it is acknowledged that such a view possibly comes from a world that is preoccupied with creativity. This discussion aims to show a particular kind of dialectic between creativity and ownership that underlies discourses about intellectual property especially in countries like Papua New Guinea. Through an ethnographic concern with personal names and their attendant claims to ownership and creativity, this paper aims to show how two trajectories of ownership co-exist in a Papua New Guinea society.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 16 , Special Issue 3: Pacific Discourses About Cultural Heritage and Its Protection , August 2009 , pp. 309 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barber, J.R., and Berdan, F. R.. The Emperor's Mirror: Understanding Cultures Through Primary Sources. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, G. “Art of the South Seas.” The Arts Bulletin 2 (1946): 119–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, G.Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, G. “Social Structure of the Iatmul People of the Sepik River, Parts 1–3.” Oceania 2 (1932): 245–91, 401–53.Google Scholar
Davitt, T.E. “The Basic Values in Law.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 58, no. 5 (1968): 1–144.Google Scholar
Gell, A.Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Gunn, M. “The Transfer of Malangan Ownership on Tabar.” In Assemblage of Spirits: Idea and Image in New Ireland, edited by Lincoln, L., 74–83. New York: Minneapolis Institute of Art, 1987.Google Scholar
Hann, C.M. “Introduction: The Embeddedness of Property.” Property Relations: Renewing the Anthropological Tradition, edited by Hann, C.M., 1–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Harrison, S. “Ritual as Intellectual Property.” Man NS 27, no. 2 (1992): 225–44.Google Scholar
Hirsch, E., and Macdonald, S.. “Introduction.” In “Creativity or Temporality,” edited by E. Hirsch and S. Macdonald, Cambridge Anthropology 25, no. 2 (2005): 1–4Google Scholar
Leach, J. “Modes of Creativity.” In Transactions and Creations: Property Debates and the Stimulus of Melanesia, edited by Strathern, M. and Hirsch, E., 151–75. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2004.Google Scholar
Leach, J. “Owning Creativity.” Journal of Material Culture 8, no. 2 (2003): 123–43.Google Scholar
Leach, J., and Kalinoe, L., eds. Rationales of Ownership. New Delhi: UBS Publishers' Distributors, 2001.Google Scholar
Lincoln, L., ed. Assemblage of Spirits: Idea and Image in New Ireland. New York: Minneapolis Institute of Art, 1987.Google Scholar
Moutu, A.Names Are Thicker Than Blood: Kinship and Ownership amongst the Iatmul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, f.c.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riles, A. “Law as Object.” In Law and Empire in the Pacific: Fiji and Hawaii, edited by Merry, S. and Brenneis, D., 187–210. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Sherman, B., and Bently, L.. The Making of Modern Intellectual Property. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Silverman, E.Masculinity, Motherhood and Mockery: Psychoanalysing Culture and the Iatmul Naven Rite in New Guinea. Michigan, MI: Ann Arbor Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strathern, M. “Division of Interest and Languages of Ownership.” In Property Relations: Reinventing the Anthropological Tradition, edited by Hann, C.M., 214–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Strathern, M.The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strathern, M.Kinship, Law and the Unexpected: Relatives Are Always a Surprise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Strathern, M.Land: Tangible or Intangible Property. Oxford: Oxford Amnesty Lectures, 2004.Google Scholar
Strathern, M. “The Patent and the Malanggan.” Theory, Culture and Society 18, no. 4 (2001): 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, R.The Invention of Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1981. First published in 1975.Google Scholar
Wagner, R.Symbols That Stand for Themselves. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Wassmann, J. “The Nyaura Concepts of Space and Time.” In Sepik Heritage: Tradition and Change in Papua New Guinea, edited by Lutkehaus, N. et al., 23–35. Bathurst: Crawford House Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Wassmann, J.The Song to the Flying Fox: The Public and Esoteric Knowledge of the Important Men of Kandingei about Totemic Songs, Names and Knotted Cords (Middle Sepik, Papua New Guinea). Port Moresby: National Research Institute, 1991.Google Scholar