Perceptions of Intellectual Property:A Review

In “The right to good ideas: patents and the poor”, The Economist depicts two driving forces in the contemporary discourse on IP and globalization. The one is interested in advancing the knowledge economy, an approach based on the belief that knowledge is the driving factor behind economic growth. The other resides on a belief that IP is a major means to advance the process of globalization. While the former is strongly motivated by new economic growth theory, as for example advanced by Stanford professor Paul Romer, the latter is based on typical anti-globalization arguments, such as for example the position that the IP system helps multinational companies to build up monopolies to the detriment of the poor, drives small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and local business in developing countries out of business and increases prices for consumer products, be they pharmaceuticals or software. The purpose of this review is to help understand the current discourse on intellectual property, to grasp underlying themes, assumptions and connotations associated with the term “IP”, so as to identify paths leading to a more comprehensive understanding of IP and the opportunities and pitfalls it may provide

Unlocking the Doors Feminist Insights for Inclusion in Governance, Peace and Security

This is the third primer in the series. It analyses the successes and gaps in women's movements' approaches to the intersections between governance and the security complex. These insights are based on AWDF's analysis of some of the major challenges confronting movement building in the areas of governance, peace and security. With these primers, our objective is to re position feminist politics as a fundamental expression of accountability to our cause and constituencies, and to provide an opportunity for advancing individual and collective learning

If I Ruled the World: Putting Hip Hop on the Atlas

“If I Ruled the World: Putting Hip Hop on the Atlas” contends for a third wave of Global Hip Hop Studies that builds on the work of the first two waves, identifies Hip Hop as an African diasporic phenomenon, and aligns with Hip Hop where there are no boundaries between Hip Hop inside and outside of the United States. Joanna Daguirane Da Sylva adds to the cipha with her examination of Didier Awadi. Da Sylva\u27s excellent work reveals the ways in which Hip Hoppa Didier Awadi elevates Pan-Africanism and uses Hip Hop as a tool to decolonize the minds of African peoples. The interview by Tasha Iglesias and myself of members of Generation Hip Hop and the Universal Hip Hop Museum provides a primary source and highlights two Hip Hop organizations with chapters around the world. Mich Yonah Nyawalo’s Negotiating French Muslim Identities through Hip Hop details Hip Hop artists Médine and Diam’s, who are both French and Muslim, and whose self-identification can be understood as political strategies in response to the French Republic’s marginalization of Muslims. In “Configurations of Space and Identity in Hip Hop: Performing ’Global South’,” Igor Johannsen adds to this special issue an examination of the spatiality of the Global South and how Hip Hoppas in the Global South oppose global hegemony. The final essay, “‘I Got the Mics On, My People Speak’: On the Rise of Aboriginal Australian Hip Hop,” by Benjamin Kelly and Rhyan Clapham, provides a thorough analysis of Aboriginal Hip Hop and situates it within postcolonialism. Overall, the collection of these essays points to the multiple identities, political economies, cultures, and scholarly fields and disciplines that Hip Hop interacts with around the world

Referencias

Estas son las referencias bibliográficas de este libro

Human computer interaction for international development: past present and future

Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in research into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of developing regions, particularly into how such ICTs might be appropriately designed to meet the unique user and infrastructural requirements that we encounter in these cross-cultural environments. This emerging field, known to some as HCI4D, is the product of a diverse set of origins. As such, it can often be difficult to navigate prior work, and/or to piece together a broad picture of what the field looks like as a whole. In this paper, we aim to contextualize HCI4D—to give it some historical background, to review its existing literature spanning a number of research traditions, to discuss some of its key issues arising from the work done so far, and to suggest some major research objectives for the future

No. 09: Transnationalism and African Immigration to South Africa

The demise of formal apartheid has created new and as yet only partially understood opportunities for migration to South Africa. Legal migration from other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, for example, has increased almost ten-fold since 1990 to over four million visitors per year. South Africa’s (re)insertion into the global economy has brought new streams of legal and undocumented migrants from outside the SADC region and new ethnic constellations within. The easing of legal and unauthorized entry to South Africa has made the country a new destination for African asylum-seekers, long-distance traders, entrepreneurs, students and professionals (Bouillon 1996; Saasa 1996; Rogerson 1997; de la Hunt 1998; Peberdy and Crush 1998; Ramphele 1999). SAMP aims to explore the migration phenomenon from a variety of disciplinary and methodological perspectives and at a number of different spatial scales. At one end of the research spectrum are the project’s statistically representative, quantitative, national surveys in source and host countries (Sechaba Consultants 1997; de Vletter 1998; Frayne and Pendleton 1998; McDonald et al 1998, 1999; Mattes et al 1999; McDonald 2000). These surveys have provided important baseline data on cross-border migration at a panregional scale. They have also helped to contest the crude misrepresentations of xenophobic discourse (Croucher 1998; McDonald et al 1998; Crush 1999a). But the large sample sizes and structured questionnaire instruments necessarily sacrifice the more nuanced information that can only be gleaned from local case studies of an ethnographic, participatory and place-based nature. What is the qualitative nature of the new South African migratory mosaic? Who are the new international migrants and immigrants in South Africa? What are the conditions shaping their migratory patterns? And what is the nature of their relations with South Africans and their home countries? We are also interested in some of the broader conceptual and theoretical questions prompted by these movements. While they may be relatively new to South Africa (and that itself is an issue for debate), they are not altogether new movements. The global “age of migration” has, by virtue of the sequestering effect of apartheid, come late to the country (Castles and Miller 1993; Cohen 1995; Sassen 1999). The conceptual and analytical debates that have swirled around the issue of migration and globalization elsewhere have largely by-passed South Africa. The question, therefore, is whether the tools for understanding the age of migration have any explanatory purchase on the South African empirical material. Whether South and Southern Africa can actually be a source of theorizing, as they have been in the past, is another question. Three major themes are addressed in this paper: (a) the changing character of cross-border migration to South Africa; (b) the value of the conceptual apparatus of transnationalism to describe and research changing forms of cross-border migration into South Africa; and (c) the spatial reconfiguration and emergence of new migrant spaces in the country. Each of these themes is discussed briefly below

Production of Innovations within Farmer–Researcher Associations Applying Transdisciplinary Research Principles

Small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan West Africa depend heavily on local resources and local knowledge. Science-based knowledge is likely to aid decision-making in complex situations. In this presentation, we highlight a FiBL-coordinated research partnership between three national producer organisations and national agriculture research bodies in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Benin. The partnership seeks to compare conventional, GMObased, and organic cotton systems as regards food security and climate change

Replacing Development: An Afro-communal Approach to Global Justice

In this article, I consider whether there are values intrinsic to development theory and practice that are dubious in light of a characteristically African ethic. In particular, I focus on what a certain philosophical interpretation of the sub-Saharan value of communion entails for appraising development, drawing two major conclusions. One is that a majority of the criticisms that have been made of development by those sympathetic to African values are weak; I argue that, given the value of communion, development should not be rejected because it is essentially, say, overly materialistic and scientistic, or insufficiently spiritual and local. The second conclusion, however, is that three criticisms of development are strong from the perspective of Afro-communalism and are particularly powerful when set in that context. I argue that development theory and practice are characteristically anthropocentric, individualist and technocratic, and that a reading of the sub-Saharan value of communion provides a unitary foundation for rejecting these features and for grounding an alternative, more relational approach to social progress and to what justice demands from the West in relation to Africa