The domestic struggle for traditional medical knowledge rights.

Abstract

In China, the local communities and various ethnic minorities still hold, sustain and develop traditional medicial knowledge (TMK), innovations, and practices within the original communities. TMK also has pharmaceutical option value, which has attracted interests in commercial use of TMK for pharmaceutical innovation in China. However, the increased use of TMK for non-traditional purposes might lead to a change in the customary treatment of TMK as common goods of relevant communities and peoples, and may lead to significant tension faced by both providers and users of TMK in China. We find there is a significant gap in literature analysing the phenonmenon of domestic biopolitics concerning TMK in China. Closely connected problem is the contradictory relationship between providers and users of TMK, especially between the indigenous and local communities, and corporate and industrial actors. Therefore, urgent research is needed to fill this literature gap.