Archive 2006-07: Cultural Ownership

Is ownership an adequate model when it comes to matters of culture? Who should be the stewards of cultural artifacts, be they archaeological remains, works of art, or languages? Can a group claim primary ownership of what it views as its cultural heritage, or must competing interests be recognized? If so, what kinds of interests may make a legitimate claim, and how is their legitimacy determined? Should a balance be struck between the interests of scientific investigation and the conflicting claims of an indigenous people? Who owns topics, experiences, or forms that may be used or appropriated in works of literature, art, or music? Are certain images sacrosanct or to be treated with special care for cultural reasons? What is at stake when Western pharmaceuticals use resources regarded as indigenous in other parts of the world to develop profit-making but also life-enhancing medicines? Should restrictions and obligations be placed on scholars who seek to work with contested materials, and if so, what kinds? Does the search for authenticity occlude the realities of cultural fusion and transmigration? What issues are at stake when a group does not have the means to preserve its culture but preservation has a primary value?

In various forms and in various locations, such questions are salient ones today. Some are reinforced because of the realities of globalisation; some emerge from a long history of colonialism and its aftermath; some derive from other legacies of conflict; some are intrinsic to newly developing forms of interaction. Because of the importance of these issues, the Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts selected the theme of Cultural Ownership for its seminar of 2006-07.

Our Fellows for the seminar were as follows.

Sky Arndt-Briggs (German and Scandinavian Studies): Changing Definitions of Cultural Ownership: The Absorption of Communist East Germany into a United Capitalist Germany.
I plan to review German press coverage on the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well as currency reform and unification, to assess the rapid transition from liberation to banking narratives. The aim is to understand the role of such narratives in the establishment of a hegemonic Western discourse of capitalist victory in post-unification Germany. In this context I will also begin exploring the relationship of cultural to legal definitions of property. In particular, I will focus on the relationship of intellectual property (e.g., film) to the state; and the experiential ramifications of changing structures of intellectual and artistic production. Contact Sky Arndt-Briggs.

David Bollier (Independent): Dreams of a Common Culture.
The traditional narrative of intellectual property is under siege, yet a new taxonomy that makes sense of the new and rapidly diversifying ecologies of creativity and knowledge has not really crystallized. This is partly because trans-disciplinary conversations about these issues has been so limited, and because traditionalist-defenders of copyright and patent law are generally dismissive of alternative narratives of value-creation. At the same time, serious theorizing about open source software and open platforms is fairly novel and under-developed. In a new book that I am currently researching, I am exploring how colliding paradigms of “ownership” are being pragmatically addressed and transcended. I want to better understand the "value proposition" of the knowledge commons as opposed to traditional market arrangements, and to describe the social bases and rules for emerging models of collaborative knowledge creation. Contact David Bollier.

Olga Gershenson (Judaic and Near Eastern Studies): Soviet-Jewish Film, Owned and Disowned.
My project is to discuss the Soviet-Jewish films of the 1920s-1930s. In this period Jews were perceived as oppressed and proletarian people, and their culture was encouraged. Over 40 Jewish films were produced. They represent Jews ambivalently, both as "new Soviet Jews" as well as ideologically-suspicious "Jews of the past." Who "owns" these films and to what culture do they belong?  I approach these questions from the theoretical perspective of cultural hybridity, to show how diverse cultural discourses are woven together in these films, some of them competing with and some of them complementing each other. I will also show how these discourses are crucial for Soviet-Jewish identity. Contact Olga Gershenson.

Laetitia La Follette (Art History): Did True Go Wrong? Cultural ownership, antiquities and the museum.
The recent return to Italy and Greece of objects long part of American museum collections marks a new chapter in the debates over the ownership of ancient art. The clearest evidence of this dramatic shift is the current trial in Rome of Marion True, former antiquities curator at the Getty. Yet True herself was involved in establishing stricter standards for ancient acquisitions. I plan to use True and her trial to study first the changing rules in the acquiring of ancient art, and second, to explore the viability of international stewardship as a guiding principle, as opposed to nationalist claims to ownership. Contact Laetitia La Follette.

Robert Paynter (Anthropology): Native American Graves and Repatriation. Contact Robert Paynter.

Oriol Pi-Sunyer (Anthropology): The Papers of Salamanca and Other Cultural Property Episodes in Catalonia.
Current mobilizations and debates in Catalonia  on matters of cultural property  form part of a broader social movement  designed to recover historic or cultural memory. This movement dates to the late 1990s and is present throughout the Spanish state, always with specific characteristics. The Catalan case is distinctive in that the sites of collective memory are often documents, generally written in Catalan, looted by the victorious fascists at the end of the Civil War. Seventy years after the start of this war, there is still strong resistance to the return of this ‘exile’ cultural property. Contact Oriol Pi-Sunyer.

Banumathi Subramaniam (Women’s Studies): Genes "R" Us? Genetics, Cultures, and the Limits of Individual Ownership.
As individual identities are increasingly geneticized, genetic and cultural claims often collide. DNA engenders cultural, individual and corporate claims that challenge the individual/cultural binary. In this project, I wish to build on the work of recent theorists who conceptualize DNA as an object that is simultaneously material and symbolic, historical and contemporary, biological and cultural, individual and cultural, but always a deeply ‘political’ object. Contact Banu Subramaniam.

Anthony Tuck (Classics): Restless Culture: Terrorist Financing, Drugs and the Illicit Market for Antiquities.
In spite of numerous international treaties designed to stem the flow of antiquities from source countries, illicit trade in ancient material culture remains one of the most lucrative and robust global black markets. This multi-billion dollar industry relies on much the same system of international trafficking as other illicit commodities, especially narcotics. In fact, the portability and value of many ancient materials has given rise to systems of movement and distribution wherein drugs and antiquities move in tandem, with material culture often serving as fungible, low-risk/high-value collateral for individuals engaged in the smuggling of higher risk commodities. Today, the problem of the illicit antiquities trade is no longer one of mere cultural or academic interest. Increasingly, as sites throughout Central Asia, especially Iraq and Afghanistan, are looted due to inadequate governmental controls, antiquities are converted to currency in order to finance military action against local populations and American forces present in those countries and beyond. To stem this development, the international community must work for great transparency for and stricter controls of those institutions and collectors whose money spent at the auction house ultimately contributes to the violence that currently scars those places where the looting of archaeological sites remains endemic. Moreover, coordinated strategies of economic development, site conservation and legislative support must be designed in order to protect and preserve the material heritage of source countries.Contact Anthony Tuck.

Paul Walsh (Theater): Actor Research, Cultural Appropriation, and the Ownership of Experience.
Actors are prized and rewarded in the theater for their ability to transform themselves into credible impersonations of complex fictional characters. To effect this transformation, they draw upon techniques of personalization and character research that often include subtle and sometimes unconscious cultural appropriations of attitudes and experiences not generally available to them. How far can techniques of personalization and character research take an actor in "owning a role" or an experience? What happens when the vocabulary of actor transformation pushes up against societal or cultural boundaries (especially with regard to issues of race, gender, ethnicity, life-style, and disability)? Do particular representations and impersonations entail particular responsibilities to the individuals or groups being represented, and if so, how is this negotiated? Do particular experiences belong to particular groups, so that they cannot or should not be represented by actors not of that group? It is my hope that thinking through unresolved issues raised by the debate about non-traditional and cross-cultural casting may help expand our thinking about acting, cultural appropriation, and the representation of experience. Contact Paul Walsh.

Martin Wobst (Anthropology): Indigenous Archaeologies and Cultural Ownership. Contact Martin Wobst.

 Back to top