Commodifying cultural knowledge: corporatised western science and Pacific indigenous knowledge

Abstract

This article examines the exploitative interplay between corporate-driven science and Pacific community-based wisdom and the extent to which they accommodate or negate each other. The focus will be on the commodification of traditional knowledge through bio-technology and bio-prospecting and its implications for people's sense of identity, security and ownership. How do globalisation and the global demand for free trade and commodification impact upon local Pacific communities caught in the dilemma of simultaneously assimilating globalisation and sustaining traditional knowledge and aspirations? The article draws on some experiences of selected communities in the Pacific and how they have responded to this dilemma. It looks at how western science has been used by corporate interests to extract and commodify Pacific knowledge using legal instruments such as patenting.