Kumbamu, Ashok --- "Sustaining the Indigenous Knowledge Commons" [2012] ELECD 333; in Bubela, Tania; Gold, Richard E. (eds), "Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge

Editor(s): Bubela, Tania; Gold, Richard E.

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848442238

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Sustaining the Indigenous Knowledge Commons

Author(s): Kumbamu, Ashok

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

7. Sustaining the indigenous knowledge
commons
Ashok Kumbamu

INTRODUCTION

In Indian agriculture, two contradictory trends have been gaining momentum
since the introduction of neo-liberal economic policies into the country in
the early 1990s: firstly, the rapid commercialization of agriculture and the
diffusion of the new agricultural technologies in general, and genetically
modified (GM) seeds in particular; secondly, the community-oriented polit-
ical-existential project involving the pursuit of a range of autonomies and
community governance: autonomy over food production, seeds and other
natural resources, local markets, media, and, through all of these, autonomy
in the livelihoods of the poor, and the socio-ecological sustainability of
their communities. In this context, this chapter examines various strategies
of community-based organizations to build social economies and new
governing models, and sustain indigenous knowledge systems. Also, this
chapter analyzes whether place-based autonomous communities would
preserve indigenous knowledge systems in the age of neo-liberal globaliza-
tion.
This chapter is organized in four parts. First I provide a background account
which locates the introduction of new agricultural technologies in general,
genetically modified cotton (Bt cotton) in particular, historically in relation to
the persistence of class, caste and gender inequalities of post-colonial India
and the mounting agrarian distress of neo-liberalized India. The second section
attempts to conceptualize indigenous knowledge systems of farmers in India
in the context of the `Gene Revolution', and its implications for farming
communities. In the third section, I examine and analyze various strategies of
community-based organizations ( ...