| This study examines issues of power as they arise around the international regulation of intellectual property and, in particular, as they relate to the regulation of knowledge originating in Africa. Specifically, the study examines the power implications of the treatment of folklore as intellectual property, taking Ghana's copyright protection of folklore as a case, and focusing on adinkra and kente textiles which are included among protected Ghanaian folklore. The study reviews the major debates on the current regulation of intellectual property around concepts such as the commons, authorship, ownership, piracy and appropriation. It also examines policy practices around these concepts both internationally and in Ghana. At the international level, those policy practices have changed considerably over the past 30 years. The study considers the consequences of those changes for Africa and other regions of the global South, and locates the examination of Ghanaian policy practices within the regulatory context that has emerged out of that 30-year history. The study also examines authorship, ownership, and appropriation of folklore as they are perceived and practiced by Ghanaian folklore producers and users. It considers the ways in which those perceptions and practices are similar to and different to the ways in which authorship, ownership and appropriation are conceptualized in both national and international intellectual property regulations. The study uses a materialist cultural studies approach that is informed by neo-Marxist political economy and feminist standpoint theory. The research methodology used also draws upon feminist and interpretive approaches. |
