IPinCH discussed issues of Aboriginal exploitation and ownership
By Leah Bjornson
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee
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In Canada, because of its peoples multicultural nature, it often becomes second nature to borrow from other societies when creating an idea of what it is to be Canadian. Nevertheless, this “borrowing” may become problematic when significant economic advantages are at play or when harm is caused to another society.
This topic was discussed by international scholars at the Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage: Theory, Practice, Policy (IPinCH) symposium on “Cultural Commodification, Indigenous Peoples & Self-Determination,” held at UBC during the first week of May.
Directed by SFU professor of archaeology George Nicholas, IPinCH is composed of a team of 50 scholars and 25 partnering organizations that is working “to explore and facilitate fair and equitable exchanges of knowledge relating to archaeology.”
The issue at hand is that of commodification of indigenous culture, and is one that tends to hide in broad daylight. In the hundreds of tourist shops that line downtown Vancouver and elsewhere, one can easily find native artwork such as Inukshuks and indigenous designs. The problem arises when one attempts to discern who these designs should be attributed to, and whether the individual or the larger native community is responsible for deciding if they can or cannot be used.
The symposium was the most recent of IPinCH initiatives, such initiative has been held for over five years. They have covered topics such as cultural resources and intellectual properties of indigenous peoples, as well as vulnerabilities and exclusion in globalization, and have taken place in cities as remote as Hokkaido, Japan. Nicholas spoke with The Peak on the importance of addressing these issues of commodification of indigenous heritage.
“One of the great challenges that the consumers face is, you go into any gift shop, any airport, any gallery, and you want to find a gift for someone which has a northwest design on it . . . [but] it’s very hard for the consumer to make choices or even know where things come from. One indication is a tag with the artist’s name, but that company who purchased the right to make that design could be producing them in China.”
A recent example of commodification of indigenous heritage was at the 2010 Olympics, when Canada chose to use the Inukshuk as its logo. When the 2010 committee was looking for a logo, they received permission to use the Inukshuk from several Inuit communities, but not all Inuit groups agreed. The question becomes one of who has the rights to give permission to a symbol, and is further complicated by the fact that a symbol can be general to a broad culture, making it difficult to know which — if any — community can make decisions for an entire culture.
Aside from economic rights, use of indigenous images can cause other kinds of harm that Western minds may not consider. “One of the dangers with all of this is that these [Inukshuks] were originally limited to the Arctic and they had significant meaning for the native people,” explained Nicholas. “Now you go into a gift shops and see hundreds of them, and as a result of this mass production they have lost their meaning.”
“The thought is that the native peoples are going extinct, and therefore it’s ok to use these images,” Nicholas continued. “But in actual fact, these people are vibrant and very alive cultures . . . These are not just images, but these [cultures’] spiritual beings may be actually embedded in the designs according to native people. That can be very inappropriate spiritually.”
Nevertheless, not all commodification is harmful. Some groups do want to share their culture, but do so by working with museums to present the stories they want to be told on their behalf, not by allowing companies to use their traditional images.
In an attempt to give native communities more of a say in how their designs are used, IPinCH is assisting in the development of traditional licensing. First presented in the IPinCH public session by Kim Christen of Washington State University, traditional licensing provides a series of labels (creative comments) to a product, which stipulates how a product can be used, for example if it is for educational or commercial purposes.
Although this licensing is a step in the right direction, copyright, trademark and patents have been very ineffective in dealing with the use of heritage images. According to Nicholas, such policies “are based on western models of individual creativity, not in terms of communal ownership of ideas. These are meant to prevent economic harm, whereas for indigenous societies this is not only an economic value, but also a cultural and spiritual values, and so there are more harms, spiritual and cultural, that can happen when it is used in a commercial way.”
It is all the more important to educate the public about the harms of using intellectual property without permission. On the IPinCH site, visitors can find a series of educational opportunities which include booklets and other materials for teachers, YouTube and educational videos, and podcasts.
“We’re not about curtailing the flow of knowledge,” said Nicholas. “We’re simply about making the flow more equitable and fair.”
