Bolivia adopted a new constitution in 2009; the new constitution provides an opportunity to analyze how people understand a constitution, and how a national constitution intersects with international legal frameworks. The workshop is guided by the questions of whether or not and how Bolivians, as they go through constitutional change will propose alternatives to globally prevalent intellectual and cultural property frameworks. These global regimes too often discussed only at international and national levels--have fallen short as regards recognition of collective creativity, access in unequal social terrains, and resolution of state-indigenous contradictions about heritage.
Working from the ground up, the workshop will initiate a dialogue about indigenous rights and cultural property that does not dismiss economic motivations, considers a multiplicity of proprietary systems, addresses already identified social values of creativity and acknowledgement, and locates cultural property claims in relation to other local indigenous struggles. As the poorest and most indigenous country of South America, Bolivia poses pressing local and globally germane challenges for intellectual property, which in Bolivia is viewed by some as an external legal mechanism designed to deny majority access to knowledge, and by others as a route out of the nationʼs economic woes.
This project will facilitate discussion among Bolivians through (a) an intensive four-day participatory workshop on cultural and intellectual property involving twenty participants who do creative performance work, represent indigenous organizations, or work in local media, and (b) a mediabased dissemination program. Principal investigators from the U.S. and the U.K. and two Bolivian research assistants will draw on collaborative ethnographic methods to coordinate the workshop and media-based dialogues.
Workshop proceedings will be summarized for international circulation through a Spanish-English bilingual website. Before and after the workshop, television and radio discussions (sometimes in indigenous languages) will further disseminate these conversations among Boliviaʼs poorer urban and rural populations where Internet access is limited. Through the workshopʼs activities, local voices rarely heard in the international context will be brought into broader global debates, and Bolivians will be provided with greater access to diverse perspectives on cultural property. Through the website and subsequent reports, connections will be sought with other international and national entities engaged in these issues.
