The Cultural Dilemma of Intellectual Property: Traditional Culture and the Liberal Polity

FAIN: FEL-263269-19

Marc Abbott Perlman
Brown University (Providence, RI 02912-9100)

Research and writing leading to a publication of a book on the history of international intellectual property rights for traditional culture and music.

This is a study of modern intellectual property law’s encounter with traditional culture, seen as a conflict between incommensurable normative realms. The viability of a liberal society rests on its ability to deal with difference. But some critics see the principles of liberal democracy as ethnocentric: what strikes the governing majority as neutral only seems so to them because it affirms their parochial values. This has long been discussed in political theory under the rubric of multiculturalism. What has not been widely noticed is that a similar collision is in progress in intellectual-property (IP) law, as Indigenous Peoples and others claim rights over their heritage. I propose to write a book-length historical, sociocultural and analytical study of this dilemma and its manifestations in civil society and global governance.