Mining for Traditional Knowledge : An Analysis of the Process and Origins of Bio-Prospecting and its Effects on Aboriginal Communities

Aboriginal peoples around the world have made invaluable contributions to advances in medical fields and sustainable resource management practices through the use of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Indigenous natural resources, yet few benefits have been restored to the source communities. Using economic and development concepts from Marx, Gunder Frank, and Ferguson I have deconstructed a process of international patent laws, benefit sharing agreements, and national resource ownership laws which have worked consistently to usurp ownership of resources and knowledge from Aboriginal communities, and to deny their development. The result is further marginalization and the aversion of Aboriginal communities to sharing their resources. Through the analysis of several case studies in Canada, South Africa, Tonga, Samoa and Lesotho I conclude that resource ownership and management practices need to be decentralized and indigeneity self-determined. I also suggest that the wider policy changes necessary to rectify the disenfranchisement of Aboriginal peoples may not be possible within the current world system of neoliberal capitalism, as centralization of capital is implicit in its design