This research examines the socio-legal processes of production surrounding Hoodia plant products, an appetite suppression agent. Hoodia is a plant grown in southern Africa and used by the indigenous Khoi/San for generations to suppress appetite. In 1996, South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) obtained a patent on Hoodia?s P57 compound for commercialization as an anti-obesity product. In 2003, CSIR signed a benefit sharing agreement giving 6 to 8% of their profit to the Khoi/San. The agreement with CSIR, however, only applies to the production of Hoodia products in the form of the patented P57 compound through CSIR and its partners. Thus, a second benefit sharing agreement was signed in February 2006 between the Khoi/San and the South African Hoodia Growers (SAHG) to ensure that the Khoi/San would receive some benefits from Hoodia products sold outside of the CSIR agreement such as for the herbal supplement market. In light of this activity around the patenting of Hoodia, the plant becomes a significant site of inquiry for examining the complexities of patent law in relation to indigenous knowledge. The specific production practices under investigation are the patenting of Hoodia and subsequent benefit sharing agreements (i.e. law), the identification of the P57 compound by CSIR in comparison with its identification by the Khoi/San (i.e. science), and the advertising of Hoodia products to consumers (i.e. market). In order to answer these questions, this project will use qualitative research methods. The investigator will conduct interviews and participant observations with relevant social actors in South Africa as well as document analysis of legal materials and web content. By investigating the production of the Hoodia plant using a variety of data sources, this project will contribute to socio-legal scholarship by developing a more nuanced and textured understanding of how these production practices work together and how they involve the production and re-figuring of indigenous knowledge and categories of identity in ways that might marginalize and/or empower indigenous peoples and indigenous women. The project will also take into account critiques by indigenous women arguing against patent law, and examine how the production of Hoodia across law, science, and market involves complex negotiations of gender. One major goal of the project is to produce generalizable knowledge that can have broader impacts by enabling stronger protections for indigenous knowledge under the law and within scientific research protocols. Another goal is to develop an understanding of how the patenting of indigenous knowledge impacts indigenous women differently.
